Williams: The blood of Jesu's cross

Saturday, April 4, 2015
    Holy Saturday
Meditation:
By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
    And who can speak of his descendants?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
    for the transgression of my people he was stricken.
He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
    and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
    nor was any deceit in his mouth.
    —Isaiah 53:8-9 (NIV)
Quotation:
The blood of Jesu’s cross
    Was never shed in vain;
There is not any loss
    Of His most precious pain:
This is the great, the finished plan
To open heaven’s door for man.

Let all bow down and own
    The sacrificèd Lamb!
Among all titles known
    His is the greatest name:
Praise, laud, and blessing to our Lord,
Let Him be evermore adored!
    ... William Williams (1717-1791), Sweet Singers of Wales: a story of Welsh hymns and their authors, Howell Elvet Lewis, London: Religious Tract Society, 1889, p. 45 (see the book)
    See also Isa. 53:8-9; Matt. 20:28; Mark 10:45; John 1:29; Eph. 2:13; 1 Tim. 2:5-6; Heb. 9:15; 10:19-20; 1 John 1:7; Rev. 5:12-13
Quiet time reflection:
    Praise to You, Lord Jesus!

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Capon: fear of losing

Friday, April 3, 2015
    Good Friday
Meditation:
We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
    each of us has turned to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
    the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed and afflicted,
    yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
    and as a sheep before her shearers is silent,
    so he did not open his mouth.
    —Isaiah 53:6-7 (NIV)
Quotation:
    I’ve already named what I consider to be the great-grandfather of all stumbling blocks: the fear of losing—of looking like a failure, and above all of being a failure. On examination, however, it turns out to be an odd fear. For one thing, it’s clean contrary to the words of Jesus: “Those who save their life will lose it, and those who lose their lives for my sake will save it.”... If that Friday, as we claim to believe, is the best thing that ever happened to the world—if we have been rescued by the world’s champion Loser—it’s got to be surpassing strange that we’re afraid of the very failures that are our personal sacraments of salvation.
    ... Robert Farrar Capon (1925-2013), The Foolishness of Preaching, Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1997, p. 16 (see the book)
    See also Isa. 53:6-7,12; Matt. 16:25; 27:39-43; Mark 8:35; 15:29-32; Luke 9:24; 23:35-37
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You gave all and gained all. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Andrewes: choosing the shame

Thursday, April 2, 2015
    Maundy Thursday
Meditation:
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
    he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
    and by his wounds we are healed.
    —Isaiah 53:5 (NIV)
Quotation:
    [Jesus said to] His disciples in earth, This, this is the Passover that “I have so longed for,” as it were embracing and even welcoming His death. And which is more, “how am I pinched, or straitened,” till I be at it! as if He were in pain, till He were in pain to deliver us. Which joy if ever He shewed, in this He did, that He went to His Passion with Psalms, and with such triumph and solemnity, as He never admitted all His life before. And that this His lowest estate, one would think it, He calleth His exaltation. And when any would think He was most imperfect, He esteemeth His highest perfection. “Here is love.” If not here, where? But here it is, and that in his highest elevation. That the joys of Heaven set on the one side, and this poor joy of saving us on the other, He quit them to choose this. That those pains and shames set before Him, and with them this joy, He chose them rather than forego this.
    ... Lancelot Andrewes (1555-1626), Ninety-six Sermons, v. II, Oxford: John Henry Parker, 1841, p. 176 (see the book)
    See also Isa. 53:5; Luke 12:50; 13:32; 22:15; Heb. 12:2; 1 John 4:10
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, as Your joy was us, we rejoice in You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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van Gogh: the working Jesus

Wednesday, April 1, 2015
    Commemoration of Frederick Denison Maurice, Priest, teacher, 1872
Meditation:
He was despised and rejected by men,
    a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces
    he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Surely he took up our infirmities
    and carried our sorrows,
yet we considered him stricken by God,
    smitten by him, and afflicted.
    —Isaiah 53:3-4 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Jesus Christ is the Master who can comfort and strengthen a man like that Macedonian, a labourer and working man who has a hard life, because He is the Great Man of Sorrows who knows our ills, who was called a carpenter’s son, though He was the Son of God, who worked for thirty years in a humble carpenter’s shop to fulfil God’s will, and God wills that in imitation of Christ, man should live humbly and go through life, not reaching after lofty aims, but adapting himself to the lowly, learning from the Gospel to be meek and simple of heart.
    ... Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), in a letter, Dec 26, 1878, The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh to His Brother, 1872-1886, Constable & Company, Limited, 1927, p. 192 (see the book)
    See also Isa. 53:3-4; Acts 16:9; 27:2
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant me humility. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Brunner: godforsakenness

Tuesday, March 31, 2015
    Commemoration of John Donne, Priest, Poet, 1631
Meditation:
He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
    and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
    nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
    —Isaiah 53:2 (NIV)
Quotation:
    [Continued from yesterday]
    God has in his mercy shown us a completely different way. “Men cannot come up to me, so I will go down to them.” And now God descends to us men... This act of becoming man begins at Christmas and ends on Good Friday...
    God really goes to the end. He reaches the goal. To be sure, this end is exactly the opposite of what we fix as a goal. We wish to climb up to heaven; God, however, descends—down to where? To death on the cross...
    This is why Jesus Christ had to descend into hell. He had to go the way to its very end. The rightful end of man is hell, that is, banishment away from God—Godforsakenness. There only has God completely come to us, there where he has taken upon himself everything, even the cursed end of our way... Jesus Christ has gone into hell in order to get us out of there. For along with everything he does, that is his goal, that he may get us out, bind us to God, reconcile us with God, and fill us with God’s Spirit. He had to despair of God for us so that we do not have to despair of God... He has taken all that upon himself so that we may become free of it.
    ... Emil Brunner (1889-1966), I Believe in the Living God: sermons on the Apostles’ Creed, Westminster Press, 1960, p. 80-83 (see the book)
    See also Isa. 53:2; Ps. 22:1; Isa. 49:14; 53:3-6; 1 Pet. 3:18-20
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have borne my disgrace. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Brunner: we cannot reach the goal

Monday, March 30, 2015
Meditation:
Who has believed our message
    and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
    —Isaiah 53:1 (NIV)
Quotation:
    All religion that man himself makes has the opposite direction from that of the gospel. It is an ascent toward the eternal, perfect God. Up, up—that is its call. God is high above, we are down below; and now we shall soar by means of our moral, spiritual, and religious endeavors out of the earthly, human depths into the divine heights... God is too high and the evil in us too deep that man could reach the goal this way. The soul of man is crippled or stiffened and cramped in such an ascent to the highest height. The end is more or less unconfessed or unavowed despair, or a self-righteousness that leaves room neither for love of God nor for genuine love of men. When we men wish to be honest, we have to say, “We cannot reach the goal.” [Continued tomorrow]
    ... Emil Brunner (1889-1966), I Believe in the Living God: sermons on the Apostles’ Creed, Westminster Press, 1960, p. 79-80 (see the book)
    See also Isa. 53:1; John 10:9; 14:4-6; Acts 4:12; Rom. 3:10-12; 5:1-2; 8:1-2; Eph. 2:1-2; 1 Pet. 1:21
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I cannot reach You in my own strength. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Trueblood: Who seeks us

Sunday, March 29, 2015
    Palm Sunday
    Commemoration of Jack Winslow, Missionary, Evangelist, 1974
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.”
    —Luke 7:47 (NIV)
Quotation:
    We believe love is a moral absolute because it reflects the nature of God. Genuine religion thus differs from philosophy or ethics, however noble and necessary they are. True religion is not man’s search for the good life, important as that might be; neither is it our effort to find God, inevitable as that may be; true religion is our response to Him who seeks us. It is not an argument for God, but a response to God’s love.
    ... Elton Trueblood (1900-1994), The Life We Prize, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1951, p. 211 (see the book)
    See also Luke 7:47; John 3:16; 15:16; 2 Cor. 5:14-15; Tit. 3:4-7; 1 John 4:10,19
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your love compels me to seek You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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