Anderson: in spite of the evidence

Saturday, April 8, 2023
    Holy Saturday
    Commemoration of William Augustus Muhlenberg of New York, Priest, 1877
Meditation:
    When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.
    —Matthew 28:12-15 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Men and women disbelieve the Easter story not because of the evidence but in spite of it. It is not that they weigh the evidence with open minds, assess its relevance and cogency and finally decide that it is suspect or inadequate. Instead, they start with the a priori conviction that the resurrection of Christ would constitute such an incredible event that it could not be accepted or believed without scientific demonstration of an irrefutable nature. But it is idle to demand proof of this sort for any event in history. Historical evidence, from its very nature, can never amount to more than a very high degree of probability.
    ... J. N. D. Anderson (1908-1994), Christianity: the Witness of History, Tyndale Press, 1969, p. 105-106 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 28:12-15; 27:62-66; Mark 8:31-33; Luke 24:5-6; Acts 5:40
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have answered all my doubts. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Law: It is finished

Friday, April 7, 2023
    Good Friday
Meditation:
    Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last.
    —Luke 23:46 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The progress of these terrors is plainly shown us in our Lord’s agony in the garden, when the reality of this eternal death so broke in upon Him, so awakened and stirred itself in Him, as to force great drops of blood to sweat from His body... His agony was His entrance into the last, eternal terrors of the lost soul, into the real horrors of that dreadful, eternal death, which man unredeemed must have died into when he left this world. We are therefore not to consider our Lord’s death upon the Cross, as only the death of that mortal body which was nailed to it, but we are to look upon Him with wounded hearts, as being fixed and fastened in the state of that two-fold death, which was due to the fallen nature, out of which He could not come till He could say, “It is finished; Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.”
    ... William Law (1686-1761), An Appeal to All that Doubt [1740], in Works of Rev. William Law, v. VI, London: G. Moreton, 1893, p. 146 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 26:39-42; Mark 14:35-36; Luke 22:41-44; 23:46; John 12:27-28; 19:30
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your mercy drove all Your actions. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Phillips: count the cost

Thursday, April 6, 2023
    Maundy Thursday
    Commemoration of Albrecht Dürer, artist, 1528, and Michelangelo Buonarrotti, artist, spiritual writer, 1564
Meditation:
    “You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said to them. “Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?”
    “We can,” they answered.
    Jesus said to them, “You will indeed drink from my cup, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared by my Father.”
    —Matthew 20:22-23 (NIV)
Quotation:
    There is joy and strength, of course, in this holy food and drink, but it is also an inevitable joining of forces with the vast Scheme of reconciliation and redemption. Now, there is something in our natural selves that may well make us wary of such a contact. The man who in his heart intends to go on being selfish or proud, or who has already decided how far his Christian convictions should carry him, is probably obeying a sound instinct when he keeps away from this glorious but perilous Sacrament. For, if the truth be told, men are often willing to put their trust in a god who in the end must be triumphant, simply because they want to be on the winning side; but they are not nearly so ready to bear any part of the cost of that winning. Yet the fellowship of the broken bread and the poured-out wine can mean no less than that.
    ... J. B. Phillips (1906-1982), Appointment with God, New York, Macmillan, 1954, p. 26 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 20:22-23; 8:19-20; 10:22; Luke 14:28-33; 1 Cor. 11:27-29; Col. 1:24; Heb. 10:37-38
Quiet time reflection:
    Am I prepared for the judgment of communion? CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Gossip: merciless sin

Wednesday, April 5, 2023
Meditation:
    When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. “I am innocent of this man’s blood,” he said. “It is your responsibility!”
    —Matthew 27:24 (NIV)
Quotation:
    They say it was old sins that troubled him, the past failures of the man, that made things difficult for him now. There had been days when he had been too hectoring or domineering; so, at least, these impossible people had said, though he himself denied it still. At all events, protesting to Rome, they had won the Emperor’s ear, and humbled their governor. And that must not happen again. Ah, me! Is not this life of ours a fearsome thing? Take care! take care! for if you sin that sin, be sure that somehow you will pay for it—and, it may be, at how hideous a price! So Pilate found in his day; so you, too, will find it in ours... Only God knows what may come out of that, if you give way to it. Pilate was curt and domineering to the Jews one day. And it was because of that, months later, his unwilling hands set up the cross of Christ: unwilling—but they did it. Take you care! for sin is very merciless. If you have had the sweet, [sin] will see to it that you quaff the bitter to the very dregs.
    ... A. J. Gossip (1873-1954), The Galilean Accent, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1926, p. 134 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 27:11-24; Mark 15:2-15; Luke 23:4,13-24; John 18:33-38; 19:4-16; 1 Cor. 2:8
Quiet time reflection:
    Do I have a sin that is cascading through my life? CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Rahner: the beginning of glory

Tuesday, April 4, 2023
Meditation:
    And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.
    —Romans 8:11 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Easter is not the celebration of a past event. The alleluia is not for what was; Easter proclaims a beginning which has already decided the remotest future. The Resurrection means that the beginning of glory has already started.
    ... Karl Rahner (1904-1984), Everyday Faith, Herder and Herder, 1968, p. 71 (see the book)
    See also Rom. 8:10-11; Ps. 16:9-10; 49:15; John 6:39-40; 14:19; 1 Cor. 6:14; 2 Cor. 4:13-14; 5:1-5; Phil. 3:10-11,20-21; 1 Thess. 4:14; 2 Tim. 1:7-10; Rev. 1:18
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, do I doubt Your promise? CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Bonhoeffer: the community of the Beatitudes

Monday, April 3, 2023
Meditation:
    “Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city.”
    —Revelation 22:14 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Having reached the end of the Beatitudes, we naturally ask if there is any place on this earth for the community which they describe. Clearly, there is one place, and only one, and that is where the poorest, meekest, and most sorely tried of all men is to be found—on the cross at Golgotha. The fellowship of the Beatitudes is the fellowship of the Crucified. With him it has lost all, and with him it has found all.
    ... Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), The Cost of Discipleship, Simon and Schuster, 1959, p. 113-114 (see the book)
    See also Rev. 22:14; Matt. 5:3-12; John 14:21-23; Rom. 4:6-9; 1 John 3:23-24; 5:3-4
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I cling to You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Wilberforce: the truth about fallen man

Sunday, April 2, 2023
    Palm Sunday
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man ‘unclean.’”
    —Mark 7:21-23 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The bulk of professed Christians are used to speak of man as of a being, who, naturally pure, and inclined to all virtue, is sometimes, almost involuntarily, drawn out of the right course, or is overpowered by the violence of temptation...
    Far different is the humiliating language of Christianity. From it we learn that man is an apostate creature, fallen from his high original, degraded in his nature, and depraved in his faculties: indisposed to good, and disposed to evil; prone to vice—it is natural and easy to him; disinclined to virtue—it is difficult and laborious; he is tainted with sin, not slightly and superficially, but radically and to the very core.
    ... William Wilberforce (1759-1833), A Practical View, Boston: Crocker & Brewster, 1829, p. 85-86 (see the book)
    See also Mark 7:21-23; Gen. 6:5; Ps. 51:5; Matt. 15:19-20; Rom. 3:9-18; 7:18; Eph. 2:1-5; Tit. 3:3
Quiet time reflection:
    Have I any hope apart from Christ? CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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