547. St. Bartholomew (a.k.a. Nathanael)

The feast of St. Bartholomew, one of Jesus' 12 apostles, is Aug. 24. By that name, he is mentioned exactly four times in the Bible: the four lists of the apostles in Matthew 10, Mark 3, Luke 6 and Acts 1, which come up often in this series of "Heroes of the Faith" hymns. And I mean just mentioned; he never gets any character development in the canonical Scriptures. Unless ... well, the "unless" comes up immediately when you consider the readings for his feast day are Proverbs 3:1-8, 2 Corinthians 4:7-10 and either Luke 22:24-30 or, and this may be significant, John 1:43-51.

Why is this significant? Well, because John writes of a disciple named Nathanael who is mentioned nowhere else, except in John 21 when the resurrected Jesus appears to several disciples including him by the Sea of Tiberias (i.e. Galilee). Is Nathanael one of the 12? The record is unclear. Is he Bartholomew? Maybe. The evidence in favor of that supposition, if you can call it evidence, is of the type one associates with the "Pepe Silvia Conspiracy Board" meme, pictured above regardless of copyright because, dude, it's a meme. But let's go over it briefly anyway.

So, in John 1 it's Philip of Bethsaida who brings Nathanael (also of Bethsaida) to see Jesus. And though John never gives us a list of the 12 apostles, the emphasis he places on Nathanael (who actually does get some dialogue and character development in this scene, and shows up later among other known apostles) suggests he's a disciple of some signifiance, perhaps even one of the 12. Meanwhile, John never mentions Bartholomew (whose name literally means "son of Tolmai"), so it's kind of like Clark Kent and Superman never being seen together at the same time and place; maybe they're the same guy. There are other cases of differences between the lists of apostles suggesting, or even outright stating, that someone went by two or more different names; for example, Matthew and Mark know of an apostle named Thaddaeus (perhaps also called Lebbaeus) while Luke (in both the third gospel and Acts) seems to replace him with Judas the son of James (a.k.a. "not Iscariot," John 14:22). So if John pulled a Luke and mentioned Bartholomew by his other name, that wouldn't be without precedent.

To put a bit more of a point on it, three of the four lists of the apostles (Matthew, Mark and Luke) put Bartholomew right behind Philip on the list; Matthew and Luke, who list the 12 in pairs, actually pair them with an "and" between their names, suggesting an association somewhat on the level of "Peter and Andrew" and "James and John." You know, sort of like how Philip and Nathanael were scene partners in John. To be sure, Acts pairs Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew (while the synpotics all pair Thomas and Matthew), so this coincidence may not be worth much; but it's there.

Wiki declareth that "most scholars today identify Bartholomew as Nathanael," which seems to be the opinion of whoever picked the John passage as an option for the gospel lesson for Bartholomew's day. Various traditions, dating back as far as the fourth century and up to more recent scholarship, suggest Bartholomew/Nathanael (whether one man or two) evangelized quite a few different regions, including India, Ethiopia and what are now Turkey, Armenia, Iraq, Iran, Algeria and perhaps even France. Busy guy! He supposedly died in Armenia by being flayed alive while continuing to preach until he died, and his relics seem to have ended up scattered all over the place. The legend strains credibility more tha deeper one looks into it. So let's just fall back on the readings, eh? And so I propose:

Peace and long life be yours,
Disciples of the Lord,
Forsaking not His word
Where truth and mercy pours.
Your steps to it devote;
Inscribe it on your heart,
And bind no name apart
From His upon your throat.

Entrust your heart to Him.
Lean not on your own mind:
A sure way you will find
And so gain man's esteem.
Fear God and flee from sin,
Nor with conceited eyes
Regard yourself as wise:
He is your Health within.

For stormy is the hour,
The vessels plain and frail
Whereby salvation's tale
Is borne to us with power.
Hard-pressed yet never crushed,
Struck down but not destroyed,
With hope our hearts are buoyed,
Our prayer and praise unhushed.

For our afflicted frame,
Our strained and stuttered breath
Bear marks of Jesus' death
And manifest His name;
His triumph, like His trials,
We boldly verify
And stake our prize on high
Against the devil's wiles.

In peace, Lord Jesus, keep
This last and little while
Nathanael without guile
And all who with him sleep.
At last, God's Son, our King,
The heavens open wide
And raise us to Your side,
A glad new song to sing.

546. St. Mary, Mother of Our Lord

Verily, even Lutheranism has more than one feast featuring the Virgin Mary on its Feasts and Festivals calendar, and I've long since written hymns on most of them. There's the Presentation of Our Lord (a.k.a. the Purification of Mary) on Feb. 2. There's the Annunciation of Our Lord on March 25. There's the Visitation, either on May 31 (three-year lectionary) or July 2 (one-year lectionary). But on the plain, vanilla feast of Mary herself (Aug. 15) I have not yet held forth. So the hymn below is my (at least first) effort in this regard. Readings for the day are Isaiah 61:7-11, Galatians 4:4-7 and Luke 1:39-55, with verses 39-45 marked as optional.

Before I get to that ... Scripture has a good deal to say about Mary, arguably all the way back to Genesis 3:15. Not to mention Isaiah 7:14. She's also a significant character in the gospels, most notably the narratives of Jesus' birth and childhood in Matthew 1 and Luke 1-2; the wedding at Cana in John 2; a discussion that ensues when Jesus' mother and siblings ask to see him in Matthew 12, Mark 3 and Luke 9; and her Son's crucifixion according to John 19. She is also mentioned in Matthew 13, where local knowledge of Jesus' family connections was held against Him, and in Acts 1, when she and Jesus' (half-) brothers joined with the apostles in prayer and supplication.

Tradition, pious and otherwise, is rife with rumors about Mary. Interestingly, the current pope has been walking back what seemed like Roman Catholicism's inevitable march toward establishing Mary in its dogma as co-redemptrix. Other biographical data about her, such as her mother's name and how (or whether) her earthly life ended, are strictly a matter of legend, not divine revelation. But I have some idle speculation of my own. I think, and this is just my opinion, the diverging genealogies of Jesus in Matthew 1 and Luke 3 can be explained as one of them (I think Luke 3) tracing Jesus' paternity through Mary. It does mention Jesus being "as was supposed" the son of Joseph, but I would argue the next name on the list (Heli) is actually Mary's father and so the line that branches off from David via his son Nathan is His physical bloodline, via human paternity. Meanwhile, Matthew's genealogy, which runs all the way down the line of kings of Judah and ends by asserting that "Jacob begot Joseph the husband of Mary," can't be thus understood – but if read as a legal argument for Jesus' claim on the throne of Israel, through Joseph's recognition of Him as his Son, it would comport with Matthew's apparent purpose.

I might as well choose this point to stake out my opinion, with an appeal to Christian freedom, that those brothers mentioned in Matthew 13 and Acts 1 were related to Jesus on Joseph's side (i.e. via a wife prior to Mary) and that His mother was semper virgo. I also think the scene at the foot of the cross where Jesus declares John to be her son suggests that she had no other sons who were obligated to support her. No questions or counterarguments will be taken at this time, thank you. ART: "Christ on the Cross with the Magdalen, the Virgin Mary and Saint John the Evangelist" by Eustache Le Sueur, †1655, public domain.

Rejoice, you heirs of heaven:
The woman's Seed has come!
Pure robes to you are given,
A heritage, a home.
You eager friends and maidens,
Behold His rich array,
His Bride with jewels laden
To feast with Him today!

The earth brings forth its flower
As summoned by the Lord,
And bears fruit by the power
Of living, active word;
And so, before the nations
His righteous banner stands,
His endless adoration
Resounding from all lands.

For when the hour was urgent,
Yea, heavily with child,
And heaven's foe, insurgent,
The age's prince was styled,
God sent His Son through Mary
To bear the law's reproof:
Salvation did not tarry;
His off'ring is enough.

Now let our souls enlarge Him
And praise Him for all time,
For God saw fit to charge Him
With all our race's crime.
He who is strong and glorious
Has so stretched forth His powers
That all His work victorious
Is reckoned now as ours.

All generations, hearken:
This news of life is yours!
Now as the ages darken,
The light of mercy pours
And Christ, the tempest stilling,
His own bears on His arm,
Their hunger richly filling
And shielding them from harm.

We are the Savior's mothers,
His sisters and His Bride,
Through flesh and blood His brothers,
Bathed at His streaming side.
Hence with the maid who bore Him
And called God's Son her own,
Soon we shall rise before Him
And gaze upon His throne.

545. St. James the Elder

Back here, I disambiguated between some biblical Jameses: the son of Alphaeus, whose feast is held on May 1; the bishop of Jerusalem, epistolist and half-brother of Jesus, celebrated on Oct. 23; and on July 25, James the Elder, the son of Zebedee and brother of John, with whom we are concerned in this hymn. Readings for his feast are Acts 11:27–12:5, Romans 8:28-39 and Mark 10:35-45.

This is the James (or, really, Jacob) of the famous trio of apostles, Peter, James and John; you think you've heard them grouped together a lot. But actually, Matthew only separates them out from the 12 once, in the transfiguration narrative of Matthew 17. Mark does so in his version of the transfiguration in Mark 9, but also (with Andrew) for the healing of Peter's (Simon's) mother-in-law in Mark 1; raising the synagogue ruler's dead daughter in Mark 5; a discussion of the end times in Mark 13, again wtih Andrew; and Jesus' suffering in the garden in Mark 14. Luke mentions the trio in his version of the raising of the dead girl in Luke 8 and the transfiguration in Luke 9. It seems John never brackets the trio, even while calling himself "the other disciple" or "the disciple Jesus loved." Paul once (in Galatians 2) mentions a trio of James, Cephas (i.e. Peter) and John, but in that instance he means James of Jerusalem.

Naturally, being brothers, James and John as a pair are mentioned together a few times. Apart from the often cited lists of the 12 apostles, the two ask Jesus if he wants to command fire to consume a village that rejected Him in Luke 9. Jesus calls the brothers to follow him in Matthew 4, Mark 1 and Luke 5; he nicknames them "Sons of Thunder" according to Mark 3; they ask Him to enthrone him at his right and left hand in Mark 10, to the irritation of the other disciples; and that's about it. As an individual, apart from Peter and John, Scripture knows nothing of James except for his martyrdom in Acts 12:2, when King Herod put him to the sword, making him (I believe) the first apostle to finish the race. Already in Acts 12:17, when an angel tells Peter to bring news to James and the brethren, another James is clearly meant. So for a supposedly central apostle, James doesn't get much play as a character.

For this hymn, contrary to my usual method of operating, I started with a tune in mind: OM HIMMERIGES RIGE, from Hans Thomissøn’s den Danske Psalmebog, Copenhagen, 1569, also known by several other titles and paired in various hymnbooks with "How blest are they who hear God's word." Got that in your mind's ear? All right. Here goes.

Beloved, be it understood
That God works all things for the good
Of those on Jesus nourished:
Called by His will, by Him foreknown,
Formed to the image of His Son,
In His regard they flourish;
They shall by no means perish.

For Your sake, Lord, the faithful say,
Your lambs are slaughtered every day.
If You with us are siding,
Who can our hope of life oppose?
Come trouble, sword or peril, those
Can never come dividing
Us from Your love abiding.

As James found, when His faith was tried,
We may with You our life confide,
A cup of sorrow drinking.
Come even a baptism of blood,
We know Your plan for us is good,
From no affliction shrinking
While on Your passion thinking.

ART: by Stefan Lochner, †1451, detail of an alterpiece depicting the martyrdom of the apostles showing the manner in which St. James the Elder most likely took the sword. Public domain.

544. St. Mary Magdalene

The feast of St. Mary Magdalene (art: public domain) is July 22, with readings from Proverbs 31:10-31, Acts 13:26-31 and John 20:1-18, minus some skipped verses (3-9). She's mentioned 13 times in the gospels: in Matthew 27-28, Mark 15-16, Luke 24 and John 20 as a witness to Jesus' burial and resurrection, and in Luke 8 as one of several women who followed Jesus and served him during his ministry. Mark and Luke particularly mention that Jesus had cast seven demons out of her, and both Mark and John single out Mary as being the first person to whom Jesus appeared after He rose from the dead. John goes into the most detail about that scene, in what I take to be the inspiration for that syrupy Jesus song, "In the Garden." But let us say no more about that piece.

There are other pious (and perhaps impious) opinions about Mary Magdalene. Jesus Christ Superstar depicts her as Jesus' paramour. Despite lack of biblical evidence, some medieval authorities held her to be a reformed prostitute, perhaps the sinful woman who anointed Jesus' feet with perfume and received Jesus' absolution (Luke 7). The name "Magdalene" suggests that she came from the village of Magdala on the Sea of Galilee. There is some suggestion that she played a prominent role, among other women, as a financial supporter of Jesus' ministry, and there are various legends about whom she married and where she died. But instead of expending futher time on such idle rumors, let's try this on:

Dim were the eyes, weighed down with grief
And early morning gloom,
That with alarm and disbelief
Beheld an empty tomb.
Soon, soon those eyes would brighten with the day
And dance, the joyful tidings to convey!

The tomb is empty; where is He
Who there but lately lay?
The Magdalene put forth her plea:
Where did they take His clay?
But when her Rabbi named her tenderly
Her eyes were opened, Easter life to see.

What God is this, who woman's eyes
Uncloses to the truth,
While even Peter still denies
And John runs, seeking proof!
What Lord, who hides and suddenly appears,
Who sports and wrestles with men's hearts and ears!

What God indeed, who died and lives,
Ascended out of sight,
And still through spoken witness gives
Us joy and life and light!
Now Lord, let us believe what we proclaim
Till, waking us, You call us home by name.

'Once Upon a Tim' books 1-4

One Upon a Tim
The Labyrinth of Doom
The Sea of Terror
The Quest of Danger
by Stuart Gibbs
Recommended Ages: 8+

In the first of these four short, kid-friendly, adorably illustrated adventures, Tim and his best friend Belinda seize their one opportunity to escape being peasants – trying out for knighthood. The alternative, for Tim, is a lifetime of dawn-to-dusk drudgery with nothing to show for it but a mud hut over his head and a cup of gruel now and then. For Belinda (who disguises herself as a boy and takes the name Bull) there are two choices: housewife or witch, neither of which appeals. Joined by the Ferkle, the village idiot, they jump at the offer to become knights, signing on with Prince Ruprecht and his wizard counselor, Nerlim, to rescue the fair Princess Grace from a smelly monster (the stinx). Little do they know they all, and not just Ferkle, are being taken for fools.

Obviously, adventures will be less than straightforward when everything on the map has "of Doom" in its name. As Nerlim comments when Prince Ruprecht tells him to stop being such a scaredy-cat because everything looks perfectly fine: "That's what I'm afraid of. This is called the River of Doom. Why would it be called the River of Doom if there wasn't any doom?" Favorite quote. But at the risk of spoiling what is to come, Ruprecht and Nerlim prove to be the boss villains throughout the remaining three books of the series, which feature a quest to resecue Grace from the center of a monster-infested maze, a sea voyage past half the perils in Homer's Odyssey, and another sea chase from the edge of the world to Atlantis, featuring the other half of those perils. Cyclopes! Krakens! Whirlpools! Sirens! And of course, a kingdom under the waves – but not the one you think! It's all there, arranged in loopy harmony with a tale of a non-traditional princess, a secretly intelligent idiot and two knights-in-training who have more spirit than the whole Knight Brigade of the Kingdom of Merryland.

I've enjoyed many of Stuart Gibbs' books for younger readers – usually not so young as the target audience of this series, though. And it wasn't just because of the age target that I didn't enjoy this set quite as much. To start, there is less of them to enjoy. The stories are humorous; the illustrations by Chris Choi are delightful; but even at the speed of Gibbs' typical offerings, these books go by awful fast and leave a lightweight impression behind. The vocab-building "IQ boosters" are a nice touch, and there's a certain whimsical quality to the narrator's way of addressing modern-day kids as if he understands exactly how different his world is from theirs. But the anachronisms don't stop there, building up to a gender politics-tinged finish that wouldn't leave any disciple of Wokism unsatisfied. But it left me less than fully satsified, and there I'll leave it.

Gibbs is also the author of now 10 FunJungle books, the Last Musketeer and Moon Base Alpha trilogies, the Charlie Thorne quartet and 13 Spy Camp novels, each of which I'm somewhere in the midst of reading and would (so far) recommend to anyone with a funnybone to tickle and a taste for adventure.

543. Heart Hymn

I felt this hymn coming on today, so by way of taking a break from my Heroes of the Faith hymn cycle, here's an unplanned volunteer for my next collection of hymns. I reckon the "Faith and Justification" section of the book needs a little more material; I've never been particularly attentive to that topic area, apart from touching on it in hymns planned for other sections such as Sundays of the Church Year, etc. With a nod toward Ezekiel 36:26 and 2 Corinthians 3:3, here goes:

Take, Lord, from me this heart of stone,
Cold, darkened, dead and past correction;
Graft in its place a living one,
Alive to You at Your election:
A heart that sorrows for my sins
And on its crossward crawl begins.

Put, Lord, into my heart Your word,
Which shaped a world once void and formless.
Where it is sprinkled, tasted, heard,
The desert blooms and seas fall stormless,
And every part of me, remade,
In Jesus' image is arrayed.

Give me a heart, Lord, to receive
What You at Jesus' cost committed.
Draw me from doubting to believe
That, with His spotless garment fitted,
I may at last approach Your throne,
Made for Your house a living stone.

ART: By Peter van der Sluijs, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license.

542. SS. Peter & Paul

I have already written hymns for the feasts of the Confession of St. Peter (Jan. 18) and the Conversion of St. Paul (Jan. 25). And yet there remains a joint feast of the two apostles, slated for June 29, for which the readings are Acts 15:1-12 (verses 13-21 optional), Galatians 2:1-10 and Matthew 16:13-19. So, with a grim sense of going back over ground that I've covered before, and with no further ado, I propose the following hymn. The art is by Jusepe de Ribera, †1652, public domain.

Jesus is the Christ, God's Son!
On the rock of this confession
Stands the Church, against which run
Hordes of hell and man's aggression,
All their rage and force in vain:
Christ His faithful will sustain.

Jesus gives His kingdom's keys
Even to that great confessor,
Peter, who with equal ease
Turns denier and transgressor;
Yet, to loose on earth our sins,
Jesus' word of pardon wins.

On the road, He blasts His call
At His persecutor, breathing
Faith and ministry in Paul,
Who with hate was lately seething.
Such a sinner Christ sets free
His bondslave and saint to be.

Let the child of Israël
Unto Peter's witness hearken,
And His great confession swell
Though this generation darken
Counsel with vain words galore;
Open yet stands Jesus' door.

Let the heirs of heathendom
Hear the gospel Paul delivers
And to saving knowledge come,
Which the house of bondage shivers;
Come, with Jesus' name engraved
On your hearts, from Hades saved.