Kierkegaard: anxiety
Monday, March 29, 2021
Commemoration of Jack Winslow, Missionary, Evangelist, 1974
Meditation:
Then Jesus said to his disciples: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes.”
—Luke 12:22-23 (NIV)
Quotation:
To live thus—to cram today with eternity and not wait the next day—the Christian has learnt and continues to learn (for the Christian is always learning) from the Pattern. How did He manage to live without anxiety for the next day—He who from the first instant of His public life, when He stepped forward as a teacher, knew how His life would end, that the next day was His crucifixion; knew this while the people exultantly hailed Him as King (ah, bitter knowledge to have at precisely that moment!), knew, when they were crying, “Hosanna!”, at His entry into Jerusalem, that they would cry, “Crucify Him!”, and that it was to this end that He made His entry. He who bore every day the prodigious weight of this superhuman knowledge—how did He manage to live without anxiety for the next day?
... Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), Christian Discourses, tr. Walter Lowrie, New York: Oxford University Press, 1961, p. 78 (see the book)
See also Luke 12:22-23; Matt. 21:9; Mark 15:13-14; Luke 21:34-36; 23:21-24
Quiet time reflection:
Lord, I look to Your example for living with anxiety.CQOD Blog email RSS
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Commemoration of Jack Winslow, Missionary, Evangelist, 1974
Meditation:
Then Jesus said to his disciples: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes.”
—Luke 12:22-23 (NIV)
Quotation:
To live thus—to cram today with eternity and not wait the next day—the Christian has learnt and continues to learn (for the Christian is always learning) from the Pattern. How did He manage to live without anxiety for the next day—He who from the first instant of His public life, when He stepped forward as a teacher, knew how His life would end, that the next day was His crucifixion; knew this while the people exultantly hailed Him as King (ah, bitter knowledge to have at precisely that moment!), knew, when they were crying, “Hosanna!”, at His entry into Jerusalem, that they would cry, “Crucify Him!”, and that it was to this end that He made His entry. He who bore every day the prodigious weight of this superhuman knowledge—how did He manage to live without anxiety for the next day?
... Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), Christian Discourses, tr. Walter Lowrie, New York: Oxford University Press, 1961, p. 78 (see the book)
See also Luke 12:22-23; Matt. 21:9; Mark 15:13-14; Luke 21:34-36; 23:21-24
Quiet time reflection:
Lord, I look to Your example for living with anxiety.
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sub fb twt Jonah Ruth
posted by Robert McAnally Adams at 3/29/2021 02:00:00 AM
1 Comments:
Kierkegaard had the right intent, but Jesus did not know all details to come. What Jesus knew, and trusted, and lived, at every moment, even while speaking these words, "Why hast thou forsaken me?", so all could be fulfilled and Jesus could see the desperation of being separated from God, what Jesus could always see now and in His future, was His Father's absolute love, that God is Love: that God could spare Him the pain, but that if Jesus must drink that horrific cup of sorrows, it was His All-loving Father who gives that cup to him, and His All-Loving Father, in Him, that drinks it, too; and Jesus knew that in Himself, in Jesus, in Whom dwelt the fullness of the Godhead, bodily, it was the All-loving God in Heaven who feels the fullness of suffering as much as the man, Jesus, on Earth. The Father in Heaven felt every excruciating nail and splinter of agony, and Jesus knew full well He would and did.
Jesus knew He and His Father were and are One, in the one Spirit of the self-sacrificial love of the One, Good, Shepherd, who was sent to Earth to lay down His life in this Earth to gather all the Father's sheep into one flock, calling out to the world, "Repent and believe the good news"; calling out first from Jesus, Himself, then from the apostles and first disciples, and now calling out to the world from the body of Christ on Earth today.
That body of Christ is the one flock that is gathering as one in that One Spirit in which Jesus, the man, Son of Man, said He and His Father in Heaven were One, Good Shepherd, so that the world may believe God sent Jesus for that very purpose of God's self-sacrificial love. That happens when the world sees the glory God gave Jesus, and the glory Jesus gave all believers, to make all believers one in that one Spirit, including every mutually loving and forgiving believer who forgives all who sin against us, including even the very least believer who only manages to believe in the name of Jesus for repentance and forgiveness of sins, in every Christian denomination and Christian faith group in the world.
When we gather in that least, little believer, Jesus and the Father will be there, and we believers will be one in the Son and in the Father, as Jesus was one with the Father when He was a man on Earth.
When that one flock begins to speak our agreement in every word that proceeded from the mouth of God, when God walked the Earth in the man, Jesus of Nazareth, starting with our agreement as one in the words Jesus spoke to make us one in that Spirit of self-sacrificial love for one another believers, in which we are thus offering to God our own love in our collective obedience to the first and second most important commands of God as fulfilled by Jesus, then the Spirit in the whole body of Christ will begin to live in the strength, and glory, and power of every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God, specifically from the mouth of Jesus of Nazareth, whom we want the world to know is God, and all the Father's sheep will finally begin to have the opportunity to hear the united voice of Jesus, and the Father, and the Holy Spirit in every believer, all calling out together to the world, as well as reminding ourselves when we are tempted to stray out in disobedience, "Repent and believe the good news".
Having thus begun, when that oneness is complete, as Jesus prayed and now has all power in Heaven and Earth to command, not one of the Father's sheep will fail to hear and come, and we can all go home with Him, living in loving obedience now on Earth, as it is in Heaven, now and forever.
"Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"" (Mt 4:4 NivUS)
"I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one:" (Joh 17:22 NivUS}
"12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." (Joh 15:12-13 NivUS)
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