Concern at the Cross

The third word: "When Jesus saw His mother and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to His mother, 'Woman, behold, your son!' Then He said to the disciple, 'Behold, our mother!' And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home." John 19:26-27

As a mother, I simply cannot begin to imagine what sorrow and suffering Mary endured as she watched her precious Son die an agonizing death. How many times as a mama have I wished that I could take the illness or the discouragement or the rejection that was afflicting one of my children. How much more excruciating for Mary to see her sinless Son who had never disobeyed or fussed, never been unkind, never lost His temper, never displayed an "attitude" and who always loved and helped and encouraged. Yet she stood there, quietly, painfully, faithfully watching and waiting as her Son, the Son of God, the Messiah, the Creator died.

And in the midst of His own physical and spiritual agony, the Lord Jesus is concerned for His beloved mother. Selfless and loving to the very end. What a mother and what a Son.

Beside our Lord on Calvary

Behold His mother near;

Her love so true, so strong, so pure

Hath conquered all her fear.

She dares the fury of His foes.

Endures the scoffer's scorn.

That she might share the Saviour's woes

And comfort Him forlorn.

O come, behold ye mothers all

Of every race and state!

Behold in her the pattern true

For you to emulate.

And come ye sons, behold the Christ,

The noblest son of earth!

In death's dark hour He looks in love

On her who gave Him birth.

Come Holy Spirit, breathe on us,

His love to each impart;

Regenerate the soul, create

His image in our heart.

Lord Jesus, thank You for not only saving us but for showing us a pattern of how to love and care about others even in the midst of the most horrific of circumstances ever endured by man. Might we, even in our busyness and preoccupation, our struggles and weaknesses, look to You and learn to love and demonstrate compassion and concern for all the people You have placed in our lives. We may be going through great difficulties, but as a scottish preacher shared many many years ago: "Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a battle." Some battles we can see, others may not be apparent but are perhaps even more challenging. Help us to get our focus off ourselves and what we are going through and what we are feeling and what we are lacking, and instead place our focus upon You and upon the people You've sent to us to love and encourage. Help us to daily, hourly to remember to gaze at the cross and be changed more and more into Your likeness. To You be the glory forever.

The Choice

Jesus' 2nd statement on the cross has always been one of my favorite verses in the Bible. Two wretched criminals hung beside Jesus on crosses which they deserved.. which I deserved. One continues to inexplicably taunt the One who shares his horrific punishment. But the other, O what hope has that other penitent thief give so many lost and sin sick souls. The other initially joined in the with the rabble in tormenting Jesus, but unlike his comrade, this thief begins to carefully observe this One called "The King of the Jews." And since our Faithful Lord never ever turns away a seeking heart, the 2nd thief somehow recognizes in the demeanor, the words, the very presence of Jesus, that this is the Son of God. I can only imagine what kind of depraved life he has led, perhaps a murdered, a thief, a scoffer, a hater. A life without any redeeming value perhaps, and yet here, at the last possible second, God chooses to answer his desperate, last second plea as he recognizes his own deplorable condition. He rebukes the other thief, saying "Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong." (Lk23:40-41) Then he turns to Jesus and asks "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." (Lk23:42) Can you imagine a more plaintive and tentative plea? He doesn't even dare ask for salvation but just perhaps to be remembered... perhaps some crumb from the banquet table of the Saviour. I'm sure he knew how utterly undeserving he was and how outrageous was his request. Dying a horrific, painful death on a cross, forsaken, guilty, helpless...could there be a more vivid portrait of hopelessness?

And then these incredible words from the lips of the Perfect Sinless One dying beside him on the cross: "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in paradise." (Lk23:43) From godforsaken to God-taken; from defeat to victory; from utter hopelessness to a living hope; from hell to heaven. Oswald Sanders writes: "The thief asked only a place in Christ's memory. He was granted a place in His kingdom." Reminds me of Eph.3:20--He is the One who does abundantly more than all we ask or imagine!

Surely there could be no clearer depiction of the choice facing every single human being on the planet--depend upon yourself and die in your sins or turn to the Saviour and accept His gift of salvation. The stark eternal choice confronts each of us--will we choose to look to the One on the center cross and live... or die? From William Olney:

They stood there grimly upon Calvary;

Each bore a victim suffering bodily.

But in the attitude of soul we see

A strange unlikeness in the suffering three.

Behold, upon the centre cross is He

Who, to atone for sin, hung on the Tree.

Of His own will He died for rebel's guilt,

Though by man's cruel hands His blood was spilt;

Pardon for all believers did Christ win,

Since upon Calvary He died for sin.

Now see upon the left a sufferer

Who even to the last did curse and swear.

Write underneath the picture of his cross,

He died in sin bringing eternal loss.

Now turn you to the sufferer on the right.

How different the picture, and how bright!

He owns his sin, laments his evil ways,

Then turns him to the centre cross and prays.

Christ pardons him. The thief now dead to sin.

Enters, with Him, the Golden Gates within.

Reader, he sure since Christ for sinners died,

Thou canst find pardon through the Crucified.

The first words

Today is April 3rd--I read recently that historians believe Christ was crucified on April 3rd. As I sit here on my comfortable deck, enjoying the warmth of the sun, the blue sky, the chorus of birds, I think of my Saviour. Bleeding, struggling to breathe, bruised and battered and betrayed on that other, O so terrible April 3rd, and all I can do is say "Thank You, thank You, thank You, Lord." The more we contemplate what Jesus did for us on calvary, the more overwhelmed and stunned and grateful we are. I know my sin, my hidden faults and selfish attitudes, my petty irritations, my pride and competitiveness and then I consider that sin, my sin, put Him on that cross. My gratitude seems so inadequate, but it, and my efforts to live everyday for Him and through Him and to His glory, are all I have. And somehow, I know that is enough...because of grace.

As I contemplate the cross today, I read in The Incomparable Christ about the 7 last words or statements Christ made upon the cross. How instructive, how reflective of His whole mission when He entered this planet, was the first statement He made as He was being nailed to the cross: "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do." Here are Oswald Sanders words:

"Jesus has been acquitted by the highest tribunal in the land; yet He is now being impaled on a cross, the most shameful punishment to which a criminal could be subjected. He has been seized by rude hands, stripped and laid on its rough beams. The Roman soldiers callously drive the spikes through His quivering flesh and raise aloft the instrument of torture. While they are still engaged in their grim task, the lips of the victim are seen to move. But that is by no means uncommon. David Smith tells us that 'it was usual for the victims of that dread doom, frenzied with pain, to shriek, entreat, spit at, and curse the spectators.'

But what is He saying! Is it some word of righteous indignation because He knew His own innocence? Is He hurling maledictions at His torturers? Is He pleading for mercy? No, non of these. He is praying.

For whom does He pray? For Himself? Again, no. We are privileged to listen in to those gracious words of intercession. Had Isaiah not prophesied that the coming Messiah would make 'intercession for the transgressors' (Is.53:12)? This is what He is doing as the pain-racked words come from His lips, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.' (Lk 23:34).

The consistent habit of a lifetime persisted even in the hour of death. His first word was a word of prayer. His hands can no longer perform acts of love for friend or enemy. His feel can no more carry Him on errands of mercy. But one form of ministry, and the highest, is still open to Him. He can still pray."

Such is our Saviour and there is none other. He doesn't condemn those abusing and torturing Him. He doesn't pray for Himself. He doesn't pray for justice. He prays for forgiveness, for grace. He prayed not only for the Romans soldiers pounding in those nails and playing a game to blithely divide up His only possessions--a rough cloak. He prayed not only for the Jewish citizens screaming "crucify Him!" and mocking Him and taunting Him to come down off the cross. He prayed not only for the repentant thief dying beside Him. He prayed for you. He prayed for me. He prayed for our children and grandchildren.

He choose the highest form of ministry in praying when healing and holding and blessing with His hands and feet were no longer available to Him. And yet in those bleeding hands and feet, we are blessed beyond all measure for they represent the ultimate price He paid for each of us. Thank You Lord for those first, those glorious words of prayer for our forgiveness. All we can do is accept them and thank you with our lives. To You be the glory.

Sorrow into singing

We are coming up on the 10th anniversary of my daddy's death on april 3. In so many ways, it seems like yesterday. But one of the things I remember most clearly is that Easter sunday which followed shortly after his death. Needless to say, it was a bittersweet time--a year earlier he had been with us, celebrating the resurrection of our Lord. And a year and a half earlier, we had lost my mom unexpectedly less than 2 weeks before Christmas. We had lost two of the dearest people in the world to all of us a mere 18 months apart--one right before the celebration of Christ's birth and the other right before the celebration of His resurrection from the dead.

Sure, I recall the numbness, the sorrow, the just plain missing so badly the sound of their voice or their laugh. I missed being able to call them on the phone to tell them the latest funny thing one of the children had said or done. I missed their wise perspective. There is just nothing to prepare you for losing your parents. But, I also just as clearly remember the joy of contemplating what wonders they must have been experiencing right at that moment in heaven. While we grieved, they rejoiced. While we wept tears, they laughed with the angels. While we could still only see in part, they could see and understand fully and completely. I wondered if it was as if we still were seeing only in black and white and they were seeing in brilliant, glowing rainbows of colors. I can still recall walking a few nights after mama died and hearing bells pealing and through my tears sensing that she was hearing the joyous pealing of bells in wondrous celebration of finally, truly being home for Christmas. As I have so often shared with others who have lost loved ones, I learned that you can have deep pain in your heart and yet a song in your soul. That Easter after Daddy's death, the resurrection held a whole new joy for me for I knew that because our Saviour lived, my daddy lived too!

I have often thought about this strange yet wonderful paradox. And then the other day as I was reading the classic book, The Incomparable Christ, I saw this very paradox reflected in the life of Christ. Of course, we all know He was both the man of sorrows and the man anointed with joy. But on the night before His crucifixion, right after the Lord Jesus shared the last supper with His disciples, Scripture records that "When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives." (Mt.26:30) I had never noticed that before--that, as Oswald Sanders put it, "The Saviour sang under the very shadow of the cross."

We even know what Jesus and His disciples sang, for at the Feast of Passover all Jews would sing Psalms 115-118, all originally one song known as "The Hallel" (which means "to praise"). One of the verses of that hymn would have been "This is the day that the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it." (Ps.118:24) I've always loved this verse and have it displayed in our kitchen as a daily reminder to be present and joyful in each day the Lord gives us, but I'd never before realized it's proper context. This "day that the Lord has made" referred to the day of Jesus' crucifixion. We surely should rejoice in that terrible day for it resulted in our redemption, but how could our Saviour sing these words as He faced the unimaginable agonies of the cross? We cannot even begin to fathom the weight of all the sin, all the wrath of God, poured out upon the perfect One who had never known even a single tiny sin. But in Christ, despite sorrow, joy.

Sanders explains, "But not only did He go to the cross with a song on His lips, but the last words of the song [the Hallel] were words of thanksgiving: 'O give thanks unto the Lord for He is good,' With these words on His lips, and the shadow cast by the Passover moon, He led the little band to the Mount of Olives. What can we learn from the Passover Song? That we can turn our trouble into treasure and our sorrow into song. Faith can sing her song in the darkest hour. Sorrow and singing are not incompatible."

I wept as I read those words, for they were precisely my experience after my parents went home to be with the Lord. Faith had enabled me to sing even in the midst of sorrow. Because the Lord Jesus became incarnate in a crib at Christmas and then gave His life on a cross at Easter, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that my parents are rejoicing in heaven and I will see them again. We truly can declare that the worst satan could devise, death, has lost it's sting, for Christ has given us the victory!

No matter what you are facing, no matter how seemingly hopeless or frightening, know that He who can turn sorrow into singing and trouble into treasure will enable you to sing even in the very shadow of your cross. And after the cross, comes the crown! He has saved the best for last, so don't put away that fork--dessert is coming! And keep on singing. To Him be the glory.

Paul's prayer for us

It has been another one of those weeks: sick children, interruptions, countless chores and errands. So much to do and time just seemed to slip by. By last night, I felt like I had hit a wall of discouragement and defeat. I needed to be working on a lecture I would be giving, but instead all I seemed to be doing was folding endless baskets of laundry, cleaning up the kitchen, taking children to the doctor, attending track meets, picking up and cleaning up and washing up... One of our children who is away at college got really sick and I added that to my list of worries and concerns--I felt helpless as he is far away at school and yet I felt heartsick that he was far away at school and sick and discouraged! You think that your hardest and most exhausting times as a parent will be when they are young, but when they grow up and are gone off, it is a whole different kind of mental exhaustion (that is much more challenging--it's worry without any control).

Yesterday I had assumed I would finally have a free day to spend in God's Word and work on this lecture, and instead, my youngest was at home sick. Now, I know this is not his fault and he did not do it intentionally to ruin his selfish mama's scheduled day, but there you have it! I spent the day going over all the make up work with him and wondering how on earth his class could possibly get his much done in one day. We laughed that he couldn't wait to get back to school and have a break from all this school work with his slavedriver mom! God certainly gave me clear confirmation (if I ever needed it) that He did not call me to homeschool!

When I fell into bed after dealing with an assortment of problems ranging from frustrating to ridiculous, I figured I'd get up really early and start to work on Bible study. Well, in the middle of the night, our youngest stood by the side of the bed and said he had a terrible ear ache. Bless his heart, it turned out he had a severe ear infection. So, after another night of very little sleep, I awoke exhausted and discouraged and overwhelmed with all I had to do.

I talked to the Lord and told Him all about it--shared my complaints and my frustrations and my disappointments. And when I was finally through moaning and fussing, our faithful Lord who never gives up on his most stubborn and slow-learning of children spoke to my heart: Pray the prayer! Okay, the prayer I'm referring to is the magnificent prayer in Ephesians 3:14-21. Ephesians 3 is the chapter we are studying in Bible study, and this prayer has blessed me as I've read it and contemplated it the past few days (hence the entry I wrote a few days ago on Eph. 3:20-21). What a prayer asking God for His power, His presence, His perception and His provision!

I've been reading it and praying it for my family and loved ones, but here's the thing, I'd been somehow missing it. Sure, I'd been praying for those things, but in the early morning darkness, it all became so real and alive to me. The words jumped off the page--they were for now, they were for us. It was if Paul sat in that dark prison just yesterday and was writing them just to us, right now, today. As I read the words in v.14 "For this reason I bow my knees before the Father" I got down on knees before the Lord, holding my Bible before Him. I prayed that He would "strengthen [us] with power through His Spirit in [our] inner being." (v.16) I asked the Lord to, right at that moment, enable us to be rooted and grounded in His love and that we would know and experience the overwhelming love of our Lord--the breadth (for God so loved the world), the length (that He gave His only Son), the depth (that whoever believes in Him should not perish), and height (but have eternal life) v.17-18. I asked the Lord to fill each member of my family--the sick ones, the discouraged ones, the preoccupied ones--with all the fullness of God. v.19

How often I seek the temporal over the eternal, the worldly over the spiritual. I want to pray for success and health and happiness for those I love. I'd been happy if God would answer this prayer with golf tournament wins for my son, with a perfect restoration to health of my children and my friends, with unblemished academic school success, with financial security, and while we're at it, world peace and happiness and joy! But praise the Lord He doesn't just seek to make me and the ones I love happy; He seeks to make us holy. He wants us to depend upon Him and to live with Him in an intimate moment by moment relationship. He reminds me that I don't need a genie-I need a Redeemer. I don't need a santa--I need a Saviour.

And so with Paul, we pray for inner strength. We pray that the Lord would not so much change our circumstances as change our souls. It's the inner strength and provision and presence of the Lord that will give us joy and peace in the midst of the stresses and strains of life. And isn't that the greatest miracle--when He changes us in the midst of our storms and gives us supernatural peace and power and joy?

So Lord, thank You for the problems of life that drive us to You. Thank You for never ever giving up on us. Thank You for Paul, chained in a prison for all those years and yet faithfully, joyfully, lovingly writing these words and these prayers for us. We pray them right now, in whatever prisons we are enduring right now, and ask You Lord, do it again! "Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to Him be the glory... forever and ever. Amen."

Dislocated Joints

A few weeks ago, a dear friend of mine took a bad fall as she was leaving book club one night (yes, this is what happens to folks my age! We fall walking down the sidewalk rather than flying down the ski slope or parasailing in the tropics!). She dislocated her shoulder, and she said it was the worst pain she had ever felt in her life. Now mind you, she has had 5 children, so she knows a thing or two about pain! Moreover, she is one strong, athletic woman who played varsity basketball at UNC, so her pain threshold is far higher than average Joe's like me. She said the pain literally knocked her off her feet, and it was so intense that she could not even think or speak. One dislocated shoulder.

Then suddenly the other day it hit me: all His joints were dislocated. Psalm 22 prophesied the horrific crucifixion of the Lord Jesus. Apparently, the words of the Psalmist accurately predicted and portrayed what would happen in this Roman form of capital punishment--from raging fever to severe dehydration to the effect on the heart and on and on. But listen to Ps.22:14 "I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint."

Somehow that aspect of suffering slipped by me, since I was ignorant concerning the horrible pain resulting from a dislocated joint. My dear friend was in agony from one dislocated shoulder. My Saviour had every bone out of joint while He hung on the cross. And unlike my friend, He had already endured hours of scourging, beating, and abuse. He had been betrayed by His friends and humiliated and taunted by His enemies. And He, who had never known sin in His whole life, bore the awful, unimaginable weight of every sin that had ever been or would ever be committed, in His nail scarred, battered, bruised body.

And add to all that, the pain of dislocated joints. For you. For me. And I had never thanked Him for that. Such is the depth and breath and length and height of His love for us. Thank You Lord Jesus for bearing my sin on the cross. I cannot imagine Your pain...but O how I thank You. To You be the glory forever.

Now to Him who is able

Thank You Lord for this glorious day! This truly is the day You have made and I thank You that I can rejoice in it! The warmth, the sunshine, the chorus of birds outside, the brilliant red camellia bush outside my door, the ability to take a deep breath and think about Your goodness. Thank You Lord.

The other day, one of my children shared discouragement over an overwhelming workload at school, another child was frustrated over persistent crippling foot pain, another struggled with school work issues and on and on. I KNOW to PRAY and not worry. I know that I know that I know. But, forgive me Lord, I'm praying on the outside but fretting on the inside. I will hand over my cares and concerns to the Almighty and the next thing I know, I am anxiously twisting and turning them over in my mind like some mental rubric's cube, and I forfeit the peace and joy and strength the Lord longs to give me. The Lord demonstrates His faithfulness and provision over and over again and yet, along comes a bump in the road, and I'm ready to run off the road in panic and despair.

I don't know why the Lord puts up with the likes of me! If I were God, I certainly wouldn't. O, but for this we have Jesus. "But God shows His love for us in that, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Rom. 5:8 Did you notice, there's another one of those, "but God's?" We mess up, we fail, we fall, we flounder...but God. We know we are to pray and not worry, and yet we do just the opposite...but God died for us even knowing we would fail again and again all the way to heaven. We know we are to rely on His power and strength and yet we get busy doing things in our own paltry strength and we crash and burn. And as we lift our bleary eyes from the ashes, He gently reminds us "but God" died for all our crashes and mess ups and, incredibly, He loves us just as much as if we never sinned. Who can explain a love like that?!

Okay, I digress. Here's what I was thinking about this morning. We are studying the book of Ephesians in Bible study, and Eph. 3:20 has come to my mind over and over. "Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly that all we ask or think, according to the power at work within us" (and v. 21 "to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen." Amen to that!!) Driving back from carpool, it was if the Lord said, "break it down and really think about all this is saying to you, Emily!" "Now"--right at this moment. Today. What do you need today? His power and provision are available to us right at this minute--whether we are driving children around or doing laundry or going to work or sitting by a loved one's bedside or encouraging a desperate friend. He is the eternal God of NOW! Sure, eternity is coming, praise God, but right now, right in the ditches and muddy pits of our everyday lives He is here and available now!

"To Him"--okay, so don't take it for granted--it's Him, Almighty God, Creator, Sustainer, Redeemer. The Alpha and Omega, the very very beginning and the very very ultimate end (if there were an end!) The omniscient, the omnipresent, the omnipotent--think of a word and put omni in front of it and you get the idea! Sort of makes you calm down when you realize the Lord who created the vast solar system is with you and He can handle whatever you are facing right this very moment, doesn't it?

"Who is able"--what can I say? He is able! He is able! He is able! He is able! He is able! He is able! Tell yourself that a thousand times of day when dread and worry and inadequacy threaten to swamp your little boat--you are not able "but God" is able! O let me say it again, because I love to hear it--HE IS ABLE!

And it that were not enough: He is able "to do"--He can do it. Now, I'm a big doer. When there's a problem, I immediately shift into "what can I do" mode. (You did notice that pronoun, "I," didn't you?) Who can I call? Who can I ask? What can I do to make this problem go away? What can I say or do... But He is able to do. For pete's sake, we need to go to Him and ask Him "to do" what we can't. I can get lost going to the grocery store. I can't remember the name of my son's dorm room (pathetic, I know). I can't seem to get rid of clutter or stop eating sweets or cease nagging my children. But He is able to do what I can't. Thank You Lord!

But He doesn't just "do" a little. That would still be pretty spectacular, you know, since He is the Lord of the universe, so His little would be waaaaaay waaaaaaay beyond anything I could ever do. "But God" is able to do "far more abundantly than all we ask or think." Unbelievable. I don't even know how to comment on that! Who can even get their minds around that? "Far more abundantly"--God's "abundantly" is like the difference between a the ocean and a microscopic drop of water. And He does abundantly more than we could ever even dream up in our wildest and most improbable of dreams. Our minds can range pretty far--He is so far beyond that we can't even come up with a metaphor! Paul just says it best "far more abundantly than all we ask or think." Wow. That is power.

But here's the ridiculous part: "According to the power at work within us." That superabundant, supernatural power is at work IN US! The God of eternity and space has placed His power within us as He works in us and through us to His glory. What kind of God would do that?--give away His power to frail, failure-prone people? What kind of God would give His power to those who He knows will reject Him and refuse to listen to Him?

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life." John 3:16

Look at the cross and You will see what kind of God. Such is our Saviour and there is none other. And whatever you are facing, right now...He... is able... to do... abundantly more... than all we ask or think... according to the power at work in us. With Paul we say, "to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen."