Month: April 2017

A hymn, titled Behold the Savior of Mankind, written by John and Charles Wesley’s father, Samuel. The last verse is especially applicable for Holy Saturday

Behold the Savior of mankind,
nailed to the shameful tree;
how vast the love that him inclined
to bleed and die for thee!

Hark how he groans! while nature shakes,
and earth’s strong pillars bend!
The temple’s veil in sunder breaks,
the solid marbles rend.

‘Tis done! the precious ransom’s paid!
“Receive my soul!” he cries:
see where he bows his sacred head!
He bows his head and died!

But soon he’ll break death’s envious chain
and in full glory shine.
O Lamb of God, was ever pain,
was ever love like thine? — Samuel Wesley (1662-1735).

According to The United Methodist Hymnal, this was “one of the few relics of his papers found after the fire which destroyed the Epworth rectory during the night of February 9, 1709.” ¹

¹ Both the poem and the historical information are from The United Methodist Hymnal (Nashville, TN: United Methodist Publishing House, 1989), 293.

There are times when prose almost becomes poetry. I’m most inclined to feel this way when I encounter an important insight put in the form of a remarkable image. N. T. Wright almost alway has an important insight, sometimes he manages to wrap it up in a remarkable image.

It is through Jesus’ crucifixion, Matthew insists, that he becomes what he was born to be: the savior (1.21). And this is how he does it: by extending his arms on the cross, enfolding us in that God-with-us embrace, and bringing us with him through death into a whole new life. — N. T. Wright ¹

Ponder that image for a bit, Jesus Christ himself, extending his arms to embrace you and then bringing you through death into a whole new life. It will happen when we physically die, but it can also happen while we’re still physically alive—if we let it.

¹ N. T. Wright, Lent for Everyone: Mathew, Year A: A Daily Devotional (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013), 118.

In doing the preliminary work for my sermon Easter Day, I was looking for an illustration in C. S. Lewis’s classic, Mere Christianity. This won’t make it into the sermon, but I wanted to share it with you. I’ve often heard people complain that they just want a simple religion, and apparently so had Lewis:

It is no good asking for a simple religion. After all, real things are not simple. They look simple, but they are not. The table I am sitting at looks simple: but ask a scientist to tell you what it is really made of— all about the atoms and how the light waves rebound from them and hit my eye and what they do to the optic nerve and what it does to my brain— and, of course, you find that what we call ‘seeing a table’ lands you in mysteries and complications which you can hardly get to the end of. — C. S. Lewis ¹

¹ C. S. Lewis, “The Invasion,” in Mere Christianity (1952).

Matthew Bates begins his book, Salvation by Allegiance Alone with a chapter titled “Faith Is Not.” Among other things, it is not wishful thinking.

The point is that real biblical faith is not a general positive mindset or a blind optimism but is directed toward a defined object— and it is the trustworthiness of the object that sources and fixes faith’s genuineness. So if we want to grow in faith, we should study and contemplate God’s extraordinary reliability. — Matthew Bates ¹

In my experience, the best way to “study and contemplate God’s extraordinary reliability” is to immerse oneself in the stories and story of the Bible.

¹ Matthew W. Bates, Salvation by Allegiance Alone: Rethinking Faith, Works, and the Gospel of Jesus the King (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, a Division of Baker Publishing Group, 2017), 23-24.