Week 10 (4/10/17-4/16/17)

This week was fairly uneventful with the exception of Auntie Susan's Birthday on Wednesday!

 As we celebrate the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus this weekend let me leave you with this passage from John Pipers's Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ. 

The agonies of God's Son were incomparable. No one ever suffered like this man. Through all eternity, we will contemplate the killing of the Son of God and sing, "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain" (Revelation 5:12).

Count Zinzendorf (1700-1760) and the Moravians developed a theology based on the wounds and blood of Jesus that some believers became lopsided in its focus on the "five wounds" of Christ. But we are not in danger today of any such excess preoccupation with the anguish of Jesus. So come and worship with me at the splendor of Christ's suffering.

No one ever deserved suffering less, yet received so much. The stamp of God on this perfect life is found in two words: "without sin" (Hebrews 4:15). The only person in history who did not deserve to suffer,suffered most. He "committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth" (1 Peter 2:22). None of Jesus' pain was a penalty for his sin. He had no sin.

Therefore, no one has ever had a greater right to retaliate, but used it less. He had at his disposal infinite power to take revenge at any moment in his agony. "Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?" (Matthew 26:53). But he did not do it. When every judicial sentiment in the universe cried out "Unjust!" Jesus was silent. "He gave [Pilate] no answer, not even to a single charge" (Matthew 27:14). Nor did he refute false ridicule: "When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten" (1Peter 2:23). nor did he defend himself in response to Herod's interrogation: "He made no answer" (Luke 23:9). no one has ever borne so much injustice with so little vengence.

This was not because the torment was tolerable. If we had been forced to watch, we probably would have passed out. In the garden, "His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground" (Luke 22:44). In the middle of the night, before the high priest, "they spit in his face and struck him. And some slapped him" (Matthew 26:67). Eusebius (about A.D. 300) described roman scourging of Christians like this: "At one time they were torn by scourges down to deep-seated veins and arteries, so that the hidden contents of the recesses of their bodies, their entrails and organs, were exposed to sight." 

In his agony the soldiers toyed with him. They dressed him in mock robes of royalty. They began to "cover his face and to strike him, saying to him, 'Prophesy!' And the guards received him with blows" (Mark 14:65). A crown of thorns was pressed down on his head-made worse by being driven into his skull with blows. "They were striking his head with a reed and spitting on him and kneeling down in homage to him" (Mark 15:19). In this condition he was unable to carry his own cross (Matthew 27:32). 

The torture and shame continued. He was stripped.his hands and feet were nailed to the cross (Acts 2:23; Psalm 22:16). The mockery was unrelenting through the terrible morning. "Hail, King of the Jews!" "You who would destroy the temple and rebuild in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross" (Matthew 27:29,40). Even one of the criminals "railed at him" (Luke 23:39).

It was a heinous death. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia tells us, "The wounds swelled about the rough nails, and the torn and lacerated tendons and nerves caused excruciating agony. The arteries of the head an stomach were surcharged with blood and a terrific throbbing headache ensued...The victim of crucifixion literally died a thousand deaths...The suffering was so frightful that 'even among the raging passions of war pity was sometimes excited.'"

All of this came upon the "friend of sinners," not with brother at his side, but utterly abandoned. Judas had betrayed him with a kiss (Luke 22:48). Peter had denied him three times (Matthew 26:75). "All the disciples left him and fled" (Matthew 26:56). And in the darkest hour of the history of the world, God the Father struck his own Son with our punishment. "We  esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted" (Isaiah 53:4). The only person in the world who truly knew God (Matthew 11:27) cried out "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46).

Never before or since has there been such suffering because, in all its dreadful severity, it was a suffering by design. It was planned by God The Father and embraced by God the Son. "It was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief" (Isaiah 53:10). Jesus was "delivered up according to the definite plan and for knowledge of God" (Acts 2:23). Herod, Pilate, the soldiers, and the Jews did to Jesus "whatever [God's] hand and...plan had predestined to take place" (Acts 4:28). down to the details, the sufferings of the Son were written in the scriptures. "Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), 'I thirst'" (John 19:28).

Not only was it suffering by design, but also by obedience. jesus embraced the pain. He chose it-"obedient to the point of death, even  death on a cross" (Philippians 2:8). And his obedience was sustained by faith in his Father. "When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly" (1 Peter 2:23). "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!" (Luke 23:46).

In that faith "he set his face to go to Jerusalem" (Luke 9:51). Why? "For it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem" (Luke 13:33). He has set his face to die. "And what shall I say, 'Father, save from this hour'? But for this purpose I have come to this hour" (John 12:27). He live in order to die. 

Therefore, the sufferings and weakness of Jesus were a work of his sovereign power. "No one takes [my life] from me, but i lay it down of my own accord" (John 10:18). he freely chose t join the Father's design for his own suffering and death. 

And what was that design? to be substitute for us, so that we might live. "The Son of Man came...to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mark 10:45). "He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree" (1 Peter 2:24). "The LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all" (Isaiah 53:6).

And the goal of it all? "Greater love has no man then this, that someone lays down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). Yes, but to what end? What does love pursue? Two great purposes were accomplished in the suffering of Christ, which are really one purpose. First, "Christ...suffered once for sin, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God" (1 Peter 3:18). The suffering of Jesus brought us to God who is fullness of joy and pleasure forevermore. Second, in the very hour of death the Father and the Son were glorified. " Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him" (John 13:31). Our joy in savoring God and his glory in saving us are one. That is the glory of Christ's incomparable sufferings.

URGENT PRAYER REQUEST!!! I have come down with a cold/sinus infection. We are going to Swaziland tomorrow, so please pray for a speedy recovery! Thanks in advance! 

Days until my family comes: 3 days! 

~Sarah Marie