My family thoughtfully put some iTunes gift cards into my stocking this year.  So I was downloading some great new music this week and reviewing the other songs on my playlist.  And I came across the Matisyahu song King Without a Crown. I’d forgotten how cool this song is. This is his biggest hit so far and at one point was the most requested song on the famous rock station KROQ in Los Angeles.

Here are a couple of lines from the song:

Sing to my God all these songs of love and healing
Want Mashiach now so it’s time we start revealing…

Fight with all of my might and get these demons to flee
Hashem’s rays fire blaze burn bright and I believe
Hashem’s rays fire blaze burn bright and I believe
Out of darkness comes light…

Now for you Gentiles who might not recognize the Hebrew words, Mashiach is Messiah or Christ (in the Greek).  It refers to the Anointed One, the savior promised to the people of Israel and all the world.  We know this to be Jesus of Nazareth, born of Mary.

Ha Shem is how an ultra-pious Jew might refer to the Deity.  It literally means “The Name.”  So to avoid breaking the commandment about taking God’s name in vain, His actual name is not uttered at all.  He’s just “The Name.”

I’m not up on yet on what Matisyahu has been doing lately, but the phenomenon is striking.  Here we have a Hasidic Jew performing for hip Gentile kids, Jews of all sorts, and a smattering of Rastafarians, along with everyone else.  He is successful at getting his message out there through his art form, a very explicitly religious message.

As a Christian, I can relate to Matisyahu’s longing for the Savior.  I too want the Messiah  to come and save us all from the present order of things.  I long for the eternal glorification that awaits all the faithful.  Of course, I believe that the Messiah did come 2000 years ago and has fully atoned for the sins of the world.  Now I hope for His return.  But were you aware of the Jews who are still serious about their expectation of a personal Messiah?  Here’s a minor celebrity who is explicit about that expectation in his music.  Interesting.

Be sure to check out this February 2006 article about him in Rolling Stone.

Coming Later: My review of The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible by A.J. Jacobs.  Plus ready yourselves for hearing about my infatuation with the music of Sufjan Stevens and Yael Naim.

• God is perfectly good
• God is omnipotent (all powerful)
• There is suffering in the world

The dilemma centers on explaining how all three of those propositions can be equally true simultaneously. Any two of them together can make sense, but all three together seem to defy reason.

There have been many writers over time who have engaged this tantalizing subject. As a pastor, it is one of the most relevant discussions imaginable. I think that “why” is the largest word in all of human language. But rather than trying to offer a “solution” in this format, I want only to make an observation.

The other evening, I caught a bit of a show on TLC called Miami Ink. If you’re not familiar, it’s a reality program about a tattoo parlor and it’s clientele. In a recent episode, a young man (20-something) came to get a lotus flower tattooed to his upper back. As far as I recall, he’d had some recent personal tragedy or loss and, in his anguish, he found solace in the teachings of Buddhism. Hence the lotus tattoo, a significant Buddhist symbol.

The lotus flower is rooted in the mud and the stem rises up through the murky water to present a beautiful blossom above it all. So, according to Buddhism, can the soul rise out of suffering to a state of bliss by means of certain teachings and practices.

The young man explained that his upbringing offered him no meaningful way to deal with the problem of suffering. Furthermore, it seemed to him that Buddhism was the only world religion that focused on overcoming suffering.

I felt very sad that this young man’s religious upbringing was so vacuous that a godless philosophy appeared to be the answer. The truth is that Christianity addresses the problem of suffering in the most direct way imaginable. Instead of mind tricks to fool the self into a state of serenity, God in Jesus Christ, immerses Himself in human pain, even to the point of death itself. Further, he takes upon Himself the root of pain which is sin. Jesus became an object of the Father’s wrath precisely to deliver us from all evil. Serenity/peace/wellness/shalom is not just a state of mind for the Christian. It is, in fact, a status awarded to us on behalf of the sacrifice of Jesus. A status you will, in the glorious resurrection, experience bodily and not just mentally or spiritually.

Significantly, because we are not slaves to that cruelest of philosophies, Karma, Christians have addressed the suffering of others very differently than adherents of eastern religions. We address it with acts of mercy.

But here is my exhortation to you. Be a doer of the Word. Love your neighbor in deeds and not words only, like God does. John 3:16 does not say that God loved the world so he had a warm and fuzzy thought about us. He did something, something hard.

At times, I am troubled by the talk of an “invisible” church. Does that mean that there are invisible Christians? I know that we cannot see the condition of a person’s heart and in that sense, faith is unseen except only to God. Nevertheless, you can’t say that you love humanity, unless you love actual people. With works of mercy.

To those who seek transcendence, the only way to rise above it all is to be raised with Christ, joined to his resurrection AND ascension by the washing of Holy Baptism.

The nature of Islam and the tradition of jihad have since drawn much attention. And it has become quite clear that establishing Islam as the dominant religion is a prominent theme in the Quran.

This can and has been done several ways, from persuasion to outright conflict. Muhammad himself, just before he died in 632, told his followers that he had been ordered by God to pursue the world until all people accepted the creed of Islam: there is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger.

The current struggle with violent expressions of Islam is nothing new for Christians. The church has been dealing with it for centuries. After Muhammad’s death, Muslims followed their prophet’s path. They began to overrun the lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. Syria, Palestine, Egypt, North Africa, and even Spain, were all conquered by 732.

Fortunately the Muslim armies were unable to prevail over Europe. It was from Europe, after the pope learned of Christian persecution across the Mediterranean, that the church responded to Islam with the crusades (beginning in 1095). Eventually they even began to send missionaries to Muslims. These missionaries experience some success, and the crusades held the Muslim forces at bay for a few centuries. But Islam was able to muster up enough strength to begin expanding again just before the reformation.

What has been referred to as the greatest jihad took place throughout the 15th and 16^th century in the eastern regions of Christian Europe. Around the time that Martin Luther was writing his small catechism Turkish Muslim armies were even poised to take control of Germany. But the European armies were able to halt their advance at Vienna in 1529. The damage was already done, though. Muslims now dominated much of Europe east of Hungary. So the church began to renew its call for a crusade in order to deal with the threat of Islam.

Martin Luther found problems with the idea of a crusade, and loudly objected to this solution. Warfare was not the business of the church. He certainly endorsed a military response to the Muslim occupation of Eastern Europe. But he argued that it was to be carried out by the secular rulers of Europe, not the church. So what could Christians do in this war against the jihad on Europe? They could certainly serve in the military. Those choosing to do so were counseled not to see this as a religious vocation. Instead, it was a secular one, a way to love the neighbor by protecting and defending them. And while the secular forces of Germany went about pushing back Muslim expansion into Europe, the church, he argued, should be busy praying for their troops and, ultimately, a peaceful resolution to the conflict.

One of the most striking things about Luther’s writing at the time, though, is his appeal that Christians strengthen their faith through catechesis and learn about the religion of Islam. Luther actually envisioned a day when Christians would be forced by circumstance to live alongside Muslims. And even though he despised Islam, he did not lose sight of God’s mission in Christ to seek and save the lost. He strongly advocated that all Christians prepare to engage Muslims with the gospel.

We live in a very different age, but Luther’s advice for dealing with Islam is instructive. In responding to violence inspired by the Quran, we must pray that our political and military leaders respond resolutely and justly. But we must also be prepared to live alongside Muslims, and recognize the numerous opportunities this presents for sharing the gospel with those for whom Christ died. As the numbers of Muslims in America continues to increase now is the time to bolster up your faith by studying the scriptures so that you too may be prepared to respond to the Muslim “who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15).

Dr. Adam S. Francisco is Guest Professor of Historical Theology at Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana.

January 6 is the Feast of the Epiphany of Our Lord. The word “epiphany” means that something is revealed. Epiphany is a season which focuses on the manifestations of Jesus’ divine nature. God reveals His glory most supremely in the flesh and blood of a man, Jesus Christ.

The Gospel reading for this day is Matthew 2:1-12, the story of the wise men. The Holy Scriptures actually tell us very little about these fellows. And several misunderstandings have piled up over the years.

The songs says, “We Three Kings,” but the bible says nothing about them being royalty. They are called magi which means that they were wise men or scholars. We don’t know where they came from exactly, though Persia is a good guess. The Scriptures merely say they came from the east. Even though your crèche has the wise men figurines, they were not present at the time of our Lord’s birth. The holy family was no longer in a stable, but in a house and Jesus was probably about 2 years old when they showed up. We don’t even know that there were three of them. It just says that they brought three gifts.

One thing we do know is that they were not Jews. Thus, they represent the nations of the world coming to Israel for salvation. Jesus later said, “Salvation is from the Jews (John 4:22). Many moderns assume that all religions are essentially the same. The Gospel of Matthews suggests otherwise. If that were so, why did those poor stargazers and their camels cross mountains and deserts to worship the newborn king of Israel? If all religions are the same, they should have just stayed home and prayed to Ishtar and burned that frankincense in the temples of Zoroaster.