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Sunday Inspiration from Pray the Gospels
By Mark D. Roberts | Sunday, April 15, 2007
Excerpt from John 21:1-25
But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. (John 21:25)
Click here to read all of today’s passage
Prayer
Dear Lord, how can anything contain Your works? Not only are they numerous beyond measure, but they are more wonderful than words can describe.
Indeed, during Your earthly life You did only so many things, and I suppose all that You accomplished could be put down in words, at least to an extent. But Your works go far beyond these. You are the Creator of the universe, the One who fashioned the heavens and the earth. Who can describe all of Your works throughout the cosmos?
You are working even today through Your people as we live our lives for Your glory. Your works are happening each moment, throughout the world. So there is no end to what You have done, and doing, and will do.
Great are Your works, Lord, great in number, great in quality! All praise be to You this day!
Postscript
“Great Are Your Works”
by Andy Park
Great are Your works Lord
Great are Your deeds
Awesome in power
So awesome to me
Your works Lord are awesome
Your power is great
Your works Lord are awesome
Your power is great
You will reign forever
In power You will reign
You will reign forever
In power You will reign
Because of Your greatness
All the earth will sing
Because of Your greatness
All the earth will sing
© 1987 Mercy / Vineyard Publishing (Admin. by Music Services) Andy Park
A rose from my garden, one of God’s excellent works
Topics: Sunday Inspiration | No Comments »
Blogging Week in Review: April 9-13
By Mark D. Roberts | Saturday, April 14, 2007
My Blogging
Monday: Is Easter a Ghost Story?
Tuesday: Redesigned Website
Wednesday: What is Easertide?
Thursday: Eastertide: Fifty Days?
Friday: Fifty Days of Easter: Some Suggestions
Links
How a Christian Publisher Deals with Racism: Zondervan faces up to having recently published some racist materials. (HT: Scot McKnight)
N.T. Wright on the Necessity of the Resurrection: The world’s most prolific author on the resurrection of Jesus offers a few wise words about its importance.
Joe Carter Summarizes the Thirty Top Books: According to John Mark Reynolds on the Hugh Hewitt Show.
Video
My daughter and I visited Sea World in San Diego during her spring break. Here’s a two-minute clip from the roller-coaster/splash down ride at the park, Journey to Atlantis. Watch out! You might get wet!
Topics: Week in Review | 4 Comments »
Fifty Days of Easter: Some Suggestions
By Mark D. Roberts | Friday, April 13, 2007
Permalink for this post / Permalink for series - Easter: More Than Just a Day
Note: This is an improved version of a post I wrote a couple of years ago.
In my last post I began to answer the question of what we might do if we were to celebrate Easter for fifty days. I explained that it’s not as if we ought to repeat the traditions of Easter Sunday fifty times in a row. But there are many aspects of Eastertide celebration that allow us to delight in the resurrection of Christ and thus grow in our faith as Christians.
One of the chief activities of Eastertide that I mentioned in my last post is deeper reflection on the meaning of the resurrection. Easter Sunday, as wonderful as it might be, allows us only to go so far. Eastertide opens up new territory for learning and reflection.
But there’s more still. If you have influence over the corporate worship of your church (if you’re a pastor or a worship leader), you can allow the seven weeks between Easter Sunday and Pentecost Sunday to be a time of continued corporate celebration of the fact that Christ is risen. In my church, for example, we sing Easter hymns and songs on the Sundays following Easter. We also continue to display the liturgical colors associated with Easter, white and gold signifying light, victory, and eternal life. (For more on the colors of the liturgical year, see my two posts: “Overview of the Christian Year” and “The Colors of the Christian Year.”)
If you’re not in a place to impact your corporate worship, you can still do things to celebrate the resurrection. For example, if Lent is a season for fasting (giving up something positive), Easter is a season for feasting (adding something positive to your life). So, if you gave up chocolate for Lent, in Eastertide you might intentionally eat chocolate, enjoying the goodness of life and remembering that joy of the life to come. (Note: Easter is not a time for pigging out, but rather to affirm the delight of God-given life.) Or you might put a vase of flowers someplace where you’ll see it regularly. Many people buy Easter Lilies for Easter Sunday and keep them for several days until the blooms begin to wilt.
One of my personal traditions, like in the seasons of Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Holy Week, is to play music with specific Easter themes. Strangely, however, given the importance of Easter to the Christian, there are not nearly as many well-known Easter pieces as there are Christmas or Holy Week compositions. In fact, I have only three recordings that I consider to be Easter-focused.
1. Johann Sebastian Bach’s Easter Oratorio. This joyful cantata narrates the events of Easter morning. To hear a portion of this piece, click here (.mov 266K). The German words mean: “May praise and thanks, remain, Lord, your song of praise.” To order the Easter Oratorio, click here.
2. Johann Pachelbel’s Easter Cantatas. Yes, the composer of the omnipresent “Canon in D-Major” (.mov, 184K) wrote other pieces, including several Easter cantatas (vocal compositions with accompaniment). Pachelbel, by the way, was a friend of the Bach family, and had some measure of influence on Johann Sebastian himself. Among Pachelbel’s cantatas is one entitled “Christ ist erstanden” (”Christ has risen”). The first few words are: “Christ has risen from all his suffering, of this we should all be glad.” To hear a clip, click here (.mov 136K). To order the Easter Cantatas, click here.
3. My third Easter-focused piece of music may surprise you. I’m going to wait until next post to discuss it in some depth. Stay tuned . . . .
Topics: Holy Week & Easter | No Comments »
Eastertide: Fifty Days?
By Mark D. Roberts | Thursday, April 12, 2007
Permalink for this post / Permalink for series - Easter: More Than Just a Day
Note: This is an improved version of a post I wrote a couple of years ago.
In my last post I shared my personal discovery of Eastertide, the fifty-day season of the Christian year set apart to celebrate that resurrection of Christ and its implications for our lives. I had promised to explain a bit further how one might give Easter its due by devoting more time and attention to this crucial holiday.
I’m sure some of my blog readers are wondering: “Fifty days of Easter? What would we do?” Surely I’m not suggesting fifty consecutive Easter egg hunts, or fifty new Easter dresses, or fifty ham dinners in a row. Celebrating Easter for fifty days is not duplicating Easter Sunday fifty times over. Rather, it’s taking time to reflect upon and delight in the truth of Easter and its implications. (The picture to the right is from Easter Sunday at Irvine Presbyterian Church.)
The basic truth of Easter is simple. In the classic litany of the church, it’s this: Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! On Easter Sunday we celebrate this good news, rediscovering for ourselves what the earliest followers of Jesus realized on that first Easter Sunday. Yet the implications of the resurrection are more than we can adequately ponder on Easter Sunday. Every year when I prepare my Easter sermon, I leave dozens of life-changing truths on the cutting room floor. There’s no way I can begin to probe the depths of Easter in a mere 20 minutes. So I proclaim the basic truth of the resurrection and explain one or perhaps two implications.
Eastertide provides an opportunity to see “the director’s cut” of the Easter sermon, if you will. It’s a chance to reflect more broadly and deeply on the multifaceted meaning of the resurrection. What might this involve? Let me suggest a few ideas:
• You could meditate upon what the resurrection says about the character of Jesus Christ as the Righteous One of God (Psalm 16:10; Acts 2:25-28).
• You might ponder the fact that death has been swallowed up in victory (1 Corinthians 15:54-56).
• You could reflect upon the fact that the very power that raised Jesus from the dead is available to Christians today (Ephesians 1:15-23).
• You might think of how the resurrection of Jesus is a precursor to your own resurrection (1 Corinthians 15).
• You could consider how the resurrection gives us “new birth into a living hope (1 Peter 1:3).
And so on. And so on. Eastertide allows us to think deeply and to pray extensively about what the resurrection of Jesus means, both to us and to our world.
Now some of my Reformed friends who are less inclined to recognize Eastertide might at this point object: “Look, for us, every Sunday is a kind of Easter. That’s why we Christians worship on Sunday rather than Saturday, after all. So why do we need a season to reflect upon what we should be thinking about every single week?” My answer is that many of us forget the Easter dynamic of weekly Sunday worship. Setting aside a season to focus on the meaning of the resurrection doesn’t deny the importance of weekly Sunday worship. In fact, it can enhance it.
Some of my evangelical friends would no doubt remind me at this point that the celebration of Eastertide is nowhere required in Scripture. This is an important reminder, because I do not mean to imply that every Christian must set aside fifty days for Easter celebration or else be in violation of Scripture. But I would argue that taking time to reflect intentionally on the biblical understanding of Easter, though it may not be required in Scripture, can certainly help us go deeper in our understanding of biblical truth as it pertains to the resurrection.
If nothing else, recognizing Eastertide gives us a chance to take the truths of Scripture and to allow them to percolate in our hearts. I don’t know about you, but I need this sort of percolation.
What would happen in our lives if we went through each day with a sixth-sense awareness of the resurrection? What would we attempt if we truly believed that the power that raised Jesus from the dead was available to us? What difference would it make if we knew for sure that death has been defeated through Christ?
Even if you aren’t ready to view Easter as a fifty-day experience, perhaps you can take some time today to think and pray about some aspect of Easter truth that, to this point, you’ve neglected. If you do, you’ll begin to taste the richness of Eastertide.
Tomorrow I’ll write about some other ways, besides thinking, that we can extend and deepen our celebration of Easter.
Topics: Holy Week & Easter | No Comments »
What is Eastertide?
By Mark D. Roberts | Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Permalink for this post / Permalink for series - Easter: More Than Just a Day
Note: This is an improved version of a post I wrote a couple of years ago.
As a child, I liked Easter. Dressing up in new clothes for church, singing joyful songs in worship, going to my grandparents’ house for an Easter egg hunt – I looked forward to all of these traditions each year. But, I must confess, in my mind Easter couldn’t hold a candle to Christmas. After all, the winter holiday meant lights and decorations, favorite Christmas carols, acting out the nativity story, and, most of all, lots of presents under the tree. Christmas, now that was a fantastic holiday. Easter, well, it was a fine celebration, but decidedly inferior. After all, you can’t exactly expect the Easter Bunny to compete with Santa Claus!
As I got older, I remember hearing my pastor talk about the magnitude of Easter, even suggesting that it was more important than Christmas. When I first heard this, it sounded almost like heresy. How could any holiday beat Christmas? Even granting the importance of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, Easter seemed to be at a decided disadvantage when compared to Christmas. Both holidays happened on a single day, of course, but Christmas celebrations lasted for weeks. Easter took up a few hours on one Sunday, and that was it, or so I thought.
It wasn’t until I was taking a seminary course in preparation for my ordination that I learned that some people – including many Presbyterians, much to my surprise – considered Easter to be, not a day, but a season of the year, and a seven-week season at that. Easter Sunday, in this perspective, begins a season in the church year that ends with Pentecost Sunday, the day Christians remember the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the earliest believers in Jesus. I was willing to grant that this was an interesting idea. And, by then, I did agree with my pastor that, theologically speaking, Easter was at least as important as Christmas, if not more (especially if you link Easter and Good Friday). But the notion of Easter as a season seemed theoretical at best. It certainly wasn’t a part of my own Christian experience.
During my first year as pastor of Irvine Presbyterian Church I was finally introduced to a Christian community that stretched the celebration of Easter beyond just a day. Our worship director at the time, Loren Wiebe, explained to me that he took Eastertide quite seriously. This meant, for example, that we’d sing Easter hymns, not only on Easter Sunday itself, but also during worship services in the following weeks. By this time I was ready to experiment with all of this, though I must confess it felt rather strange to sing “Christ the Lord is Risen Today” a couple of weeks after Easter Sunday. (And “Christ the Lord is Risen Two Weeks Ago” didn’t work either.) Moreover, the word “Eastertide” sounded strange to me, like some remnant of days gone by. Nevertheless, I did my best to be a good sport. Slowly, over the years, I’ve grown to appreciate celebrating Easter for more than just a single Sunday. In fact one of my favorite Christian songs actually uses the word “Eastertide.” The song is “This joyful Eastertide,” arranged by Charles Wood. (To hear an excerpt, click here. To purchase this recording, click here. The CD cover is pictured to the right.)
As I have done in previous years, this year I want to write a bit on how we can give Easter its due. I’ve come to believe that, in many ways, Easter gets short shrift, at least in many Protestant and independent churches. As a result, we miss out on some of the richness and joy of a full Easter celebration. There’s no biblical rule that says you have to celebrate Easter for seven weeks. But I believe that if we extend our celebrations of Easter beyond a single Sunday, the result will be a more vital and jubilant faith.
In the next few posts I want to lay out some ideas for celebrating Easter as a season, not just a day. Some of these will seem obvious to you, though some, I’d expect, will be surprising. My goal, to be sure, is to stretch augment your understanding of the Christian year, much as I’ve tried to do in my series on Advent and Lent. But I’m also hoping that I might enrich your experience of Easter, which, in the end, is really the experience of the resurrected Christ.
Stay tuned . . . .
Topics: Holy Week & Easter | No Comments »
Redesigned Website
By Mark D. Roberts | Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Today I’m launching my redesigned website. My hope is to make this site even friendlier and more functional for my readers (and bit friendlier for me too).
Improvements: I’ve integrated WordPress software into my main site, which allows for the following improvements:
• a clickable list of recent posts in the right sidebar
• a list of past posts archived by date in the right sidebar
• a list of topics (which allows for another way to access the content of this site. Now you can find things I’ve written before by: searching, scrolling through the list of past series in the left sidebar, or clicking on the topic of your interest)
• a more accessible means of adding or reading comments
• a neater central column, with the latest blog post right at the top for quick review.
If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you’ll note that the Table of Contents is now missing. It’s been replaced by the list of recent posts in the right sidebar. One advantage of this for you is that the newest post will be right at the top of my homepage.
Archives and Series: My posts will now be saved in the archives powered by WordPress. You can find previous posts by using the links in the right sidebar as is common to most blogs. However, one of the distinctives of my website–the collection of blog posts into extended series–will remain. You can access past series by scanning the left sidebar or by searching the site.
Permalinks: All of my old Permalinks are unchanged. If you want to link to something new, please use the Permalink at the top of each post (for individual posts or for a whole series). This process is a little different from most blogs. It allows me to keep most of my previous posts in easily accessible series, which gets around the problem you’ll find when trying to link to several related posts in other blogs.
Syndication: Syndication will remain much as before. However, the syndication link is changed. You’ll want to change your Feed Reeder to the new RSS/XML link (http://markdroberts.com/?feed=rss2). Note: If you’re not familiar with syndication, it is an easy way to keep up-to-date with a large number of websites. More info here.
Problems: As with any rollout of a new website, I’m quite sure there will be unforseen problems, bad links, etc. Please let me know about this by sending me an e-mail. I’ll try to correct the problems, to the limit of my technical ability, which is quite limited, actually. Thanks for your patience.
I hope my new blog format will be an improvement for my readers. I think you’ll especially appreciate easier and more varied access to past posts and the ability to add comments quickly and in a place where they are easily read by others. This should encourage more conversation and community. At least that is my plan.
Thanks to all of you who are faithful readers of my blog! I hope to continue to serve you well in the future.
Topics: Website Info | 11 Comments »
Is Easter a Ghost Story?
By Mark D. Roberts | Monday, April 9, 2007
The first part of an Easter sermon called “Ghost Story”
Permalink for the sermon
I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with ghost stories. As a boy, a part of me wanted to hear about ghosts and monsters and the like just to prove how tough I was. Another part of me wanted to dive under the covers whenever somebody was about to tell a scary story.
My friend Keith liked to tell ghost stories to scare me, until one night when he had an encounter with a real ghost. After filling his mind with ghostly terrors just before bed, Keith didn’t sleep well. He tossed and turned all night, pulling his sheets and blankets out of place as he thrashed around in bed.
Very early in the morning Keith had a nightmare. He dreamt that a ghost was attacking him, holding him by the throat and choking him. In his dream, Keith grabbed the ghost’s arms and tried to pull him away, but to no avail. The ghost was too strong. Soon the dreaming Keith began to feel like he was suffocating. It was a horrifying moment.
He suddenly woke up, only to see what appeared at first to be a ghost actually choking him. As he struggled to make sense of what was happening to him, Keith realized that one of his white bedsheets was wrapped around his neck. Like in his dream, Keith was trying to pull the “arms” of the sheets away. But, in so doing, he was actually choking himself more. The real body of the real Keith was being suffocated by his sheet! Somehow Keith’s unconscious made up a dream to go along with reality. And, thankfully, he woke up before his “ghost” could finish its ghoulish task.
Well, as you can imagine, that was the end of ghost stories for Keith, at least for a long while. And, frankly, I didn’t mind.
Reassurance from Physics
I only wish that a paper recently published on the Cornell University Library website had been around when I was a boy. Last August, Costas J. Efthimiou, a theoretical physicist at the University of Central Florida, and his colleague, Sohang Gandhi, a grad student at Cornell, published a paper entitled, “Ghosts, Vampires and Zombies: Cinema Fiction vs Physics Reality.” These two scientists examined commonly held beliefs concerning such supernatural beings, arguing on the basis of rigorous methodology that they simply don’t exist. Zombies, for example, aren’t the undead who stalk the earth. Rather, they’re just normal people who were poisoned with the “highly toxic substance called tetrodotoxin.” This poison, which comes from the Pufferfish, can make somebody appear to be dead long enough for a quick burial. But, after a while, that person can wake up. Science has yet to determine why they stumble around with their arms pointed strangely forward.
Ghosts, the scientists argued in their paper, are physically impossible because the essential immateriality of their nature, that which allows them to pass through walls, precludes their being able to walk around at all. Walking requires forces explained by Newton’s Laws of Motion. An immaterial being would not be able to exert the physical force required for walking, or even to stand upon a solid surface. The authors of the paper went so far as to wonder why ghosts need to “mimic human ambulation” anyway. “This is a very slow and awkward way of moving about in the scheme of things,” they sagely observed. So, the bottom line: Be reassured! There are no ghosts, no vampires, and no zombies.
Did the Disciples See a Ghost?
As we read Luke 24, it’s obvious the disciples of Jesus didn’t have the benefit of scientific disproof of the supernatural. When Jesus Himself stood among them after His death, they “were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost” (v. 37). They knew enough to realize that dead bodies don’t come back. And they knew enough about what had happened to Jesus two days earlier to know that He was really dead. So, seeing something that looked like Jesus, they could only conclude that it was a “ghost” or “spirit,” as the Greek literally reads. Naturally, they were plenty spooked!
You just gotta love those disciples! Even after the resurrection, they still had the hardest time getting things right. Though they had heard that Jesus had risen from the dead, and though Jesus Himself had predicted this, when He appeared among them, they freaked out. Now I don’t know about you, but this gives me lots of hope. It means that I don’t have to be a paragon of faith to be a disciple of Jesus. It means I can have my doubts, my fears, and my confusions, and still be the kind of person Jesus accepts, no, the kind of person Jesus chooses, to be one of His disciples. If you’re someone who struggles with faith, if you find yourself doubting and confused, you should be mightily encouraged by this story. You’re just the sort of person Jesus wants on His team. (Click here to read the rest of this sermon.)
Topics: Holy Week & Easter | No Comments »
The Fourteenth Station: Jesus is Placed in the Tomb
By Mark D. Roberts | Monday, April 9, 2007
Part 14 of series: The Stations of the Cross: A Devotional Guide for Lent and Holy Week
Permalink for this post / Permalink for series
Luke 23:50-54; Mark 16:1-4
Luke 23:50 Now there was a good and righteous man named Joseph, who, though a member of the council, 51 had not agreed to their plan and action. He came from the Jewish town of Arimathea, and he was waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God. 52 This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. 53 Then he took it down, wrapped it in a linen cloth, and laid it in a rock-hewn tomb where no one had ever been laid. 54 It was the day of Preparation, and the sabbath was beginning.
Mark 16:1 When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. 2 And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. 3 They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” 4 When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back.
Copyright © Linda Roberts, 2007.
For permission to use this picture, please contact Mark D. Roberts
Reflection
After Jesus died, His body was placed in a tomb. This was better treatment than many crucified people would have received. Their bodies were often discarded by Roman soldiers and left exposed, unless they had families or friends nearby to care for them. The body of Jesus was fortunate enough to receive unusual attention from a man named Joseph, who was both a member of the Sanhedrin and a follower of Jesus. He made sure the body of his Master was appropriately buried, so that, later, the bones of Jesus could be finally interred in an ossuary (a special box for bones). Little did Joseph know that God had other plans for the body of Jesus.
In most human societies appropriate burial of dead bodies is a sacred tradition. It matters profoundly that we ensure the proper resting place for those who have died. Yet, after burials happen, we don’t generally mention them specifically. My father died in 1986. I’ve spoken of his death probably 500 times since then, but I don’t think I’ve ever said “My dad died in 1986 and then he was buried.” Burial, however significant to us, is something we assume and don’t need to point out specifically. If I say “My dad died” you rightly assume that he was buried.
Therefore, it’s notable that all four biblical Gospels describe the burial of Jesus and the help of Joseph of Arimathea. Moreover, the very earliest summary of the Chrstian message also contained explicit reference to Jesus’s burial. The Apostle Paul, writing to Christians in Corinth about twenty years after Jesus’s death, summarized the basic Christian good news in this way:
For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received:
that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures,
and that he was buried,
and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures,
and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. (1 Corinthians 15:3-5)
There it sits, unadorned but essential: “and that he was buried.” Why? Why did the earliest Christians, and then why did the writers of the Gospels, consider it so important to mention the actual burial of Jesus?
To put the question a different way, what does “and that he was buried” add to the essential Christian message? For one thing, it prepares the way for the affirmation of the resurrection. To say that Jesus died and was raised without mentioning His burial could lead to a misunderstanding of the story. One might think that Jesus was immediately brought back to life from the cross, or that He was immediately jettisoned to heaven. “And that he was buried” eliminates these options, and explains the place from which Jesus was raised.
But, more important by far, the mention of the burial of Jesus makes it absolutely clear that Jesus really died on the cross. He didn’t just appear to die, as was once proposed by Hugh Schoenfield in his bestselling book, The Passover Plot. Schoenfield’s “swoon theory” has been discredited by scholars of all theological stripes. Whatever else can be known about Jesus, all the evidence, from both biblical and extra-biblical sources, points to the simple fact that He really died upon the cross. When the earliest Christians proclaimed the burial of Jesus, they were saying, in effect, that He really, really died. Had Charles Dickens been among the first Christians, he might have written that Jesus was a dead as a doornail, just like Jacob Marley.
I don’t mean to suggest that Jesus’s death, a fairly mundane historical fact, is easy to parse out theologically. After all, Jesus was not just a man, but the God-man. He was the Word of God in flesh, the One in whom was life and who was the source of all life (John 1:1-14). The Jesus died physically, and that, in the process, He suffered the penalty of spiritual death for sin, are mysteries far beyond our ability to fully fathom. How could the One who was the Way, the Truth, and the Life actually die? How could the Author of Life lose His own life?
I don’t propose to answer these questions. I’ve been a Christian for over forty years and they still perplex me . . . and call me to wonder . . . and invite me to worship. Perhaps one of the best responses to the mystery of Christ’s real death was penned by Charles Wesley early in the eighteenth century. I’ll close with the words of his beloved hymn, “And Can It Be That I Should Gain?” I can think of no better way to finish this reflection on the fourteenth station of the cross and, indeed, to complete this series. The main purpose of The Stations of the Cross is to draw us more deeply into the reality, mystery, and mercy of the cross, so that we might experience the love of God more truly and powerfully.
And can it be that I should gain
An interest in the Savior’s blood?
Died He for me, who caused His pain–
For me, who Him to death pursued?
Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?‘Tis mystery all: th’Immortal dies:
Who can explore His strange design?
In vain the firstborn seraph tries
To sound the depths of love divine.
‘Tis mercy all! Let earth adore,
Let angel minds inquire no more.
‘Tis mercy all! Let earth adore;
Let angel minds inquire no more.He left His Father’s throne above
So free, so infinite His grace–
Emptied Himself of all but love,
And bled for Adam’s helpless race:
‘Tis mercy all, immense and free,
For O my God, it found out me!
‘Tis mercy all, immense and free,
For O my God, it found out me!Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray–
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.Still the small inward voice I hear,
That whispers all my sins forgiven;
Still the atoning blood is near,
That quenched the wrath of hostile Heaven.
I feel the life His wounds impart;
I feel the Savior in my heart.
I feel the life His wounds impart;
I feel the Savior in my heart.No condemnation now I dread;
Jesus, and all in Him, is mine;
Alive in Him, my living Head,
And clothed in righteousness divine,
Bold I approach th’eternal throne,
And claim the crown, through Christ my own.
Bold I approach th’eternal throne,
And claim the crown, through Christ my own.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, today we remember the fact that Your death wasn’t some charade. Rather, You really died. Thus You experienced the ultimate penalty for our sin . . . for my sin.
I’ll never be able to understand fully the wonder of Your death. But I can grasp the fact that Your real death opened up the door for me to experience real life. Face with such a merciful mystery, I cry: “Amazing love! How can it be, that Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?”
To You be all the praise and glory! Amen!
Topics: Holy Week & Easter | No Comments »
The Thirteenth Station: Jesus Dies on the Cross
By Mark D. Roberts | Thursday, April 5, 2007
Permalink for this post / Permalink for this series
Part 13 of the series: The Stations of the Cross for Lent and Holy Week
Luke 23:44-47
44 It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, 45 while the sun’s light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 46 Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” Having said this, he breathed his last. 47 When the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God and said, “Certainly this man was innocent.”
Copyright © Linda Roberts, 2007.
For permission to use this picture, please contact Mark D. Roberts
Reflection
At first glance, Luke’s version of the centurion’s response to Jesus’s death seems like a glaring understatement.”Certainly this man was innocent,” rightly identifies Jesus’s lack of guilt. It makes clear once again the fact that He didn’t deserve to be crucified for sedition against Rome. He was no ordinary revolutionary, no guerrilla warrior, no terrorist. So, yes, “this man was innocent.” But couldn’t Luke have done better than this in His telling of the story? Mark’s version seems so much stronger: “Truly this man was God’s Son!”
We can’t be sure why Luke fashioned the narrative of Jesus’s death as he did. But we can understand that “Certainly this man was innocent” carried more weight with Luke than it might seem. Some translations, including the classic King James, have, “Certainly this was a righteous man” (23:47). This is a literal translation of the Greek, which uses the word dikaios to describe Jesus. Dikaios can mean innocent, but it is the usual word for “righteous,” and the base of such words as “righteousness, justice, justification” (dikaiosyne) and “justify” (dikaioo). From the lips of the centurion comes something far more than a recognition of Jesus’s innocence. It’s an ironic confession of His character as the righteous one, indeed, The Righteous One.
That Jesus was The Righteous One identifies Him with the Suffering Servant from Isaiah 53. In this classic passage we read:
3 He was despised and rejected by others;
a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity;
and as one from whom others hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him of no account.
4 Surely he has borne our infirmities
and carried our diseases;
yet we accounted him stricken,
struck down by God, and afflicted.
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions,
crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the punishment that made us whole,
and by his bruises we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have all turned to our own way,
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all. . . .
11 Out of his anguish he shall see light;
he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge.
The righteous one [ho dikaios], my servant, shall make many righteous,
and he shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great,
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong;
because he poured out himself to death,
and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.Isaiah 53:4-6, 11-12
Because Jesus was righteous, because He was innocent, not just of crimes that deserved crucifixion, but of all wrongdoing, He was able to make many righteous by bearing the sin of others. He became the spotless sacrifice for all people.
One of my favorite passages from the New Testament explains in theological language the import of Jesus’s death: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Simply put, God made Christ to be sin in that He became an offering for sin, taking our place in receiving the death that sin begets. Christ was able to do this because He was The Righteous One. In exchange, we receive His own righteousness (dikaiosyne), the very righteousness of God. Through Christ, we are brought back into right relationship with the living God and begin the process of being made fully right, just like Jesus.
So the apparently simple expression of the centurion, “Certainly this man was innocent” turns out to mean much more than it suggests on the surface. Jesus was not just innocent, but righteous. And He was not just any old righteous person, but The Righteous One who came to fulfill the role of the Suffering Servant. Through His righteous life, and through His sacrificial death, we receive the gift of His own righteousness. What a wonder!
I close today with the wonderful poetry of the classic hymn, “The Solid Rock,” by Edward Mote:
My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand,
All other ground is sinking sand.When darkness seems to hide his face,
I rest on his unchanging grace;
In ev’ry high and stormy gale,
My anchor holds within the veil.
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand,
All other ground is sinking sand.His oath, his covenant, his blood
Support me in the whelming flood;
When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my hope and stay.
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand,
All other ground is sinking sand.When he shall come with trumpet sound,
Oh, may I then in him be found;
Dressed in his righteousness alone,
Faultless to stand before the throne.
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand,
All other ground is sinking sand.
Prayer
Merciful Lord, thank You for being The Righteous One. Thank You for Your perfect life and Your sacrificial death. Thank You for taking my sin upon Yourself, and giving me Your righteousness in return.
Like the centurion, I look upon Your cross today with wonder. But I’m not only struck by your legal innocence. I’m astounded by Your willing to suffer and die for me, the Righteous One for the unrighteous. All praise be to You, glorious, gracious, giving Lord!
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The Twelfth Station: Jesus on the Cross, His Mother, and His Disciple
By Mark D. Roberts | Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Part 12 of series: The Stations of the Cross for Lent and Holy Week
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John 19:25-27
25 Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26 When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” 27 Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.
Copyright © Linda Roberts, 2007.
For permission to use this picture, please contact Mark D. Roberts
Reflection
Though most of the men who followed Jesus deserted him at the cross, His female followers remained to observe his death. All four New Testament gospels mention this striking fact (Matt 27:55-56; Mark 15:40-41; Luke 23:49; John 19:25). John alone specifies that Mary the mother of Jesus was among the women who remained near him until the end.
In the Gospel of John, Mary was standing next to “the disciple whom [Jesus] loved,” believed traditionally to be John, one of Jesus’ closest disciples and the source of the gospel that bears his name. Observing these two, Jesus said to His mother, “Woman, here is your son,” and to the beloved disciple, “Here is your mother” (19:26-27). The writer of the gospel adds, “And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home” (19:27). The basic meaning of Jesus’ statement is clear. He was entrusting care of His mother to one of His most intimate friends and followers. He was making sure that she would be loved and cared for after Jesus’s death. Jesus knew He could trust His beloved follower with an extremely important responsibility. (We don’t know much about the relationship of Jesus and His natural siblings at this point. Earlier in his ministry they seemed to have been less than fully supportive of His ministry [see Mark 3:21]. Later, Jesus’ brother James became one of the main leaders of the Christian church.)
Commentators throughout the ages have rightly noticed Jesus’ attention to the needs of others, in this case Hiw mother, even in Hiw hour of excruciating suffering. This is a fine observation and surely fits with everything else we know about Jesus.
But for many years I have been struck by the thought of what Jesus’s mother must have experienced as she watched her son being crucified. I can only begin to imagine her pain. When my father was dying slowly from cancer, his mother (my grandmother) was still alive. Her anguish over her son was palpable. At one point she said to me, “I’d give anything to change places with Dave. No mother should ever have to see her son suffer like this.” I expect Mary could have said similar words as she stood near the cross of Jesus.
Yet Mary might have understood that the death of her son was part of God’s mysterious plan. The gospels don’t tell us too much about her experience or faith at this time. She surely knew from the very beginning that Jesus was extraordinary and that God had something very special in store for Him. And there were moments when she probably understood that Jesus’s destiny would not be an easy one, for Him or for her. For example, in Luke 2 when Simeon praised God upon seeing the baby Jesus, he delivered a chilling prophecy to Mary, “This child is destined for the falling and rising of many in Israel . . . and a sword will pierce your own soul too” (2:34-35).
I found Mel Gibson’s portrayal of Mary in The Passion of the Christ to extremely moving, partly because he didn’t overplay his hand in depicting Mary’s grief. Though her loving sorrow for her son is obvious, Mary doesn’t weep and wail and carry on. She seems to know that something like this was coming, that Jesus is doing that for which He was born. As a mother, she wants to run to Him, and at one point she is able to do so. But she also understands that she cannot rescue Jesus from His fate and that, in a profound sense, she must not even if she could. Jesus has chosen to lay down His life of His own accord, believing that this is the cup His Heavenly Father has given Him to drink (John 10:18; Mark 14:32-42). Mary’s strength and reserve seems to respect what her son and, indeed, what His Heavenly Father, have chosen.
As we reflect upon the meaning of Christ’s death this week, Mary’s presence at the cross reminds us of the deeply human drama that is occurring, while it points beyond to the majesty and mystery of God’s plan for salvation.
Prayer
When I think of Your mother, Lord, I remember that You weren’t just the Son of God bearing the sins of the world. You were also the son of Mary, the boy whom she loved. Mary gives us a touching reminder of Your humanity, Lord. Because You were truly human, because You truly suffered, You did indeed bear the sins of the world, and mine as will. All praise be to You, Lord Jesus! Amen.
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The Eleventh Station: Jesus Promises His Kingdom to the Good Thief
By Mark D. Roberts | Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Part 11 of the series: The Stations of the Cross for Lent and Holy Week
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Luke 23:39-43
39 One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” 40 But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? 41 And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” 42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” 43 He replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
Reflection
Three men being crucified, suffering excruciating pain, literally. (The word “excruciate” comes from the Latin cruciare, “to crucify.”) One man joins in taunting Jesus, sarcastically calling out for salvation he knows Jesus can’t deliver. The other, sensing something that he has never felt before, defends Jesus as an innocent victim. Then, in desperate hope, he cries out: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” In response Jesus says a most astounding thing, a most encouraging thing, a most curious thing: “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
It’s easy to imagine the jeers of the crowds at this point as they made fun of Jesus’s silly wishful thinking. After all, He’d only been on the cross for an hour or two. Most crucifixions lasted several days before the victim finally died from exhaustion, exposure, loss of blood, and suffocation. Today in Paradise? What a joke! All Jesus and the stooge beside him will experience today is ultimate pain and ultimate disgrace. If they are lucky, perhaps tomorrow they might die. And even then, Paradise? Hardly!
The word “Paradise” comes from a Persian word meaning “garden.” It was used to describe a place of beauty, peace, and joy. In Jewish thought, Paradise represented the Garden of Eden, and could stand for the joys of heaven. Paradise was just about as far as one could get from crucifixion. Yet, in spite of the apparent absurdity of it, and in spite of the spiteful laughter of the crowd, Jesus promises that the thief will join Him in Paradise even this very day.
Luke 23:39-43 has often perplexed Christians who believe that salvation comes only by explicitly confessing Jesus as Savior and Lord. “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” hardly fits the bill here. Whatever the desperate thief believed about Jesus, it’s unlikely that he prayed the sinner’s prayer while on his cross. And we have no reason to believe that Jesus straightened out the thief’s theology before offering the promise of Paradise. No, what we have in the text of Luke is a cry of minimal faith and maximal desperation. And what we have from the mouth of Jesus is a response of extraordinary mercy.
It would be unwise to build a whole theology of salvation on the basis of this single passage from Luke. And it would be unwise to build a theology of salvation without taking seriously this passage. Whatever else, it reminds us that God is “rich in mercy” (Ephesians 2:4). God saves us, not because we earn it, not because we deserve it, not becuase we say the right words and pray the right pryers, and not even because we get our theology right, but because God is full of mercy, mercy revealed and poured out through Jesus Christ, mercy that says to a thief: “Today you will be with me in Paradise.”
If this crucified criminal could have hope, then perhaps you and I can as well. We hope, not in our goodness, not in our good intentions, but in the matchless mercy of God. As I reflect on Jesus’s response to the thief, I’m reminded of a marvelous hymn by Frederick William Faber, “There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy.” It turns out that this hymn is actually an excerpt from a longer piece written by Faber, called “Souls of Men! Why Will Ye Scatter.” I’ll close today with all of Faber’s verses:
Souls of men, why will ye scatter
like a crowd of frightened sheep?
Foolish hearts, why will ye wander
from a love so true and deep?
Was there ever kindest shepherd
half so gentle, half so sweet,
as the Savior who would have us
come and gather round his feet?There’s a wideness in God’s mercy,
like the wideness of the sea;
there’s a kindness in his justice,
which is more than liberty.
There is no place where earth’s sorrows
are more felt than up in heaven;
there is no place where earth’s failings
have such kindly judgment given.There is welcome for the sinner,
and more graces for the good;
there is mercy with the Savior;
there is healing in his blood.
There is plentiful redemption
in the blood that has been shed;
there is joy for all the members
in the sorrows of the Head.For the love of God is broader
than the measure of man’s mind.
and the heart of the Eternal
is most wonderfully kind.
But we make his love too narrow
by false limits of our own;
and we magnify its strictness
with a zeal he will not own.Pining souls, come nearer Jesus,
and O come not doubting thus,
but with faith that trusts more bravely
his great tenderness for us.
If our love were but more simple,
we should take him at his word:
and our lives would be all sunshine
in the sweetness of our Lord.
Prayer
Dear Lord, how I thank and praise You for Your mercy. You give us, not what we deserve, but infinitely better. Thank You for hearing my cries to You, and for responding to me much as You did to the thief who sought Your help. Thank You for remembering even me, and for the promise I have of Paradise beyond this life. There’s much I don’t understand about the afterlife, but what I know is that I will be with You, seeing You face to face. And in Your presence there will be fullness of joy. That’s more than enough for me! Amen.
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The Tenth Station: Jesus is Crucified
By Mark D. Roberts | Monday, April 2, 2007
Part 10 of series: The Stations of the Cross for Lent and Holy Week
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Luke 23:33-4, 47
23:33 When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” And they cast lots to divide his clothing.
23:47 When the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God and said, “Certainly this man was innocent.”
Reflection
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| Above: The Church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem. Golgotha is believed to be under the large dome. Below: Inside the Church of the Resurrection. The actual place of Jesus’s crucifixion is on the left side of the photo.Bottom: Gordon’s Calvary does look a bit like a skull, but Golgotha probably got its name, not from this rock formation, but from the fact that so many people were crucified there.These photos are all from Holy Land Photos, a fantastic source of pictures. Used by permission. | |
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According to Luke, Jesus was crucified at “the place that is called The Skull” (23:33). The other Gospels mention that it was called Golgotha, the Greek transliteration of the Aramaic word Gûlgaltâ that means “skull.” We get the English word “Calvary” by way of the Latin calvariae locum, which means, “place of the skull.”The precise location of Golgotha is not clear from Scripture. It was near Jerusalem according to John 19:20, and therefore, by implication, not in the ancient city proper. Hebrews 13:12 mentions that Jesus “suffered outside the city gate.” John 19:41 adds that there was a garden in the place where Jesus was crucified.
From the earliest days Christian tradition has identified the location of Golgotha in a place that is now within an ancient church in Jerusalem (the Anastasis Chuch, or Church of the Resurrection, also called the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre). This church is now located near the center of Jerusalem. But in the first century this location was actually outside of the walls of the city.
Modern archeology has substantially confirmed the accuracy of traditional Christian belief about the location of Golgotha (Note 1). Since the nineteenth century, an alternative location for Jesus’s crucifixion has been popular. The so-called Gordon’s Calvary (near the Garden Tomb) does look somewhat like a skull, but most scholars don’t believe it was the location of Jesus’s death for a variety of sensible reasons.
Christians throughout the ages have made pilgrimages to Golgotha, walking along the Via Dolorosa, and pausing to remember the Stations of the Cross along the way. Since I’ve never been to Jerusalem, I’ve not yet had the chance to visit the place where Jesus died. I hope to do so at some point in my life.
Why? Why would I join the millions of Christians who have made a pilgrimage to Golgotha?
There’s something about being in the actual place where something momentous happened that makes the event more real. When I was in college, I used to ride my bike to Concord, Massachusetts, to the North Bridge, the place where “the shot heard round the world” began the War for Independence in 1775. As I leaned on that bridge and looked upon the peaceful countryside, I’d think about the men who died that day, and about the freedom I enjoy because of their sacrifice. I’d leave Concord with deeper gratitude for blessings I usually take for granted.
Sadly, I also can take the freedom I have in Christ for granted. For over four decades I’ve known that Jesus died for my sins. And, even though I’ve staked my life upon this good news, there are times when it can almost seem old hat. I expect that a visit to Golgotha, like to the Concord bridge, would retool my perspective. I’d remember that the death of Jesus really happened, in a real place at a real time. There the Lord of Glory suffered and died for the sins of the world . . . and for my own sins. I yearn to experience the truth of Jesus’s death more profoundly, and thus I hope to visit Golgotha someday.
In the meanwhile, I’m thankful for the Stations of the Cross that allow us to approximate a pilgrimage to Calvary. The images and verses of the Via Crucis invite us to follow Jesus to the cross, that we might experience deeper gratitude for the blessings we can so easily take for granted.
Prayer
Gracious Lord, how can I ever thank You for dying on the cross for me? Your death has given me life. Your sacrifice has led to my blessing. Yet I confess that I can sometimes take Your death for granted, forgetting what You did for me and neglecting its significance. Forgive me, Lord. And even though I can’t go to the actual place of Your crucifixion today, my the reality of Your sacrifice press itself upon my mind and flood my heart.
All praise to You, merciful Lord, for Your cross!
Notes:
I have found three fairly helpful online discussions of the location of Golgotha: “Mt. Calvary” in The Catholic Encyclopedia, “Calvary” of Wikipedia, and “Where Was Golgotha?” from the Worldwide Church of God website.
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