Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Give Us This Day

Home
Evangelical

2014-04-12T01:05:28-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Saturday in Lent 5 – John 13:1-17

Last updated on: April 12, 2014 at 1:05 am By Fr. Charles Erlandson

John 13:1-17

This meditation is really a Maundy Thursday meditation, but here it is on the Saturday before Holy Week.

Jesus says to you today: “A new commandment I give unto you, That you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another” (John 13:34). This name, “Maundy Thursday,” comes from the Latin words mandatum novum, or “new commandment,” taken from John 13:34.

Now why is this a new commandment? The commandments to love God and love your neighbor as yourself come from the Old Testament. It is new because the commandments to love God and love neighbor are hidden away among 612 other commandments. Each of these was either about loving God or loving neighbor, and yet it was easy to miss. New, because it is through Jesus Christ Himself that we see the love incarnated that we are commanded to have. New, because Jesus is about to demonstrate with His life the love that He teaches with His mouth.

So Jesus gives us a new commandment – in fact, the commandment above all others: the commandment to love. On Maundy Thursday, even before the ultimate story of love found in Good Friday, we find in John 13 a complete teaching on love. For on Maundy Thursday, and every day of our lives, Jesus gives us the example of love, the commandment of love, and the strength to love.

Though the entire life of Jesus was an act of sacrificial love, on Maundy Thursday, Jesus gave His disciples – and that includes us – a striking example of love. For on the night in which He was betrayed, He did not demand that His disciples serve Him . . . . He didn’t pamper Himself . . . . He didn’t give His body rest and luxury to prepare for the exhausting and most trying day ahead.

On the night in which He was betrayed, which was also the night He was tried and sentenced, before He did anything else . . . He washed His disciples’ feet.

Now we may not appreciate the significance of this job in 21st century America, but in Jesus’ day, this was one of the lowest jobs around, reserved for common servants. You may not appreciate how humbling it is to wash another person’s feet, especially in a culture where sandals were worn every day and baths were only as frequent as new moons. But feet in the 1st century – who are we kidding? – feet in every century – are dirty, stinky, and smelly. As a parent of young children, I see that every day. (That’s right, blame the kids!)

I remember once in eighth grade when I was on a youth leadership retreat, and the leaders of the youth group decided to have a foot-washing ceremony one night. Earlier that day, I had gone off by myself to explore and play. I seem to remember something about a tire swing on a tree and a bunch of really wet mud all around it. But I digress.

We gathered in a circle to wash each other’s feet. Slowly, the bowl and towel passed around the circle, until it was Christina Cathcart’s turn to wash someone’s feet: mine. When I took off my shoes and socks, I embarrassingly discovered a ring of black all around my ankles and suddenly remembered the tire swing and pool of mud. I may have been embarrassed, but Christina Cathcart was mortified. How humbling to her, and yet more than anyone else that night she had an opportunity to understand love.

But what if the person washing your feet were Jesus Christ Himself, wiping your feet with His own clothing? This was only one among many acts of love He performed in a life that was a living, walking advertisement for love. As John writes of Jesus, “having loved his own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end.”

When Peter learned the lesson of love, He asked to have not only His feet but also His whole body washed. And we, who are His disciples, are to have our whole bodies and souls washed by Him. This is what He does for us in baptism, coming to us in love, and offering to cleanse us. This is what He does in the Lord’s Supper. In the Prayer of Humble Access we pray: “Grant us, therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our souls washed through his most precious blood.”

Here, on Maundy Thursday, then, we see both Baptism and the Holy Communion, as Jesus offers Himself to us that we might live in love.

How humbling, that the Lord who washed His disciples’ dirty, stinking feet in the upper room, has washed your sinful soul – much, much dirtier and stinkier than feet can ever get. How humbling, that the King of Glory should come to His disciples this way, and dirty Himself with the stains of our darkest sins, day after day, broken commandment after broken commandment of dirty, slimy sin!

Notice that Jesus gives the example of love first, and then the commandment – as if to say to us: “anyone can tell you to love, but let me show you first so that you will truly understand.” Which is easier? To say, “Love one another” or to actually love and then say “Love as I have loved you”? Jesus follows up His humble example with a concrete commandment, John 13:34 – “A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”

It’s not enough for us to simply have our feet washed by our Lord: He washes us so that we might become like Him. He washed His disciples’ feet, so that they might learn love. And He washes your body and soul, so that you might learn to love and serve, as He did.

This love that was so real in the life of Jesus must be made just as real in the life of His disciples. Palm Sunday teaches that the Kingdom of God is a Kingdom of humility, service, and love. And Jesus says, “If you want to be great in the Kingdom of heaven, then learn to be the servant of all.” “No disciple is greater than His master but strives to be like Him in all things.” And now: “Love one another, as I have loved you.”

It is your Christian duty – and a duty that should proceed spontaneously from a washed soul – to wash the feet of the saints. “Love one another, as I have loved you.”

Look for opportunities to serve; make yourself the most humble person you know; take the lowest job in the room. Anoint the Body of your Lord Jesus Christ – anoint His Body, the Church – by loving one another, as He first loved you. The new commandment to love one another begins by loving God but must continue by loving the saints. It must conclude by loving those not like you. Love those who are not like you and who may not reciprocate the favor. Love those who hate you. Remember that Jesus washed the feet and offered His love feast to the very one who betrayed Him.

If we keep opening our arms and doors of our churches, God’s communities of love, we will get some different, strange people come through those doors – and we must love them. We might get some teenagers and young people who don’t dress quite like us or talk just like us or who might say or do some startling things. And we must love them. We might meet neighbors who will eat our food, and play our games, and hear our music – and never even think about coming into God’s house – and we must love them too.

“As I have loved you, you also love one another.”

But how shall we ever find the strength within ourselves for such an impossible task – to love as our Lord loved us? Jesus was able to love perfectly, in spite of the pain He endured, in spite of being rejected, not just because He was God but also because His human nature actively choose to obey the Father and was sustained by the Holy Spirit. That is where He found His strength.

We can only obey this great commandment of Jesus – to love as He loved us – through the same strength that Jesus Christ found: the strength of God the Father through Jesus Christ and by the Holy Spirit.

There are many ways to find the strength of God, but all of them are only through Jesus Christ. But Jesus gave His disciples a special way to celebrate His love and be strengthened to love with His love and power: His supper. After Jesus had shown His disciples the example of love, and after He had given them the commandment of love. He gave them the power of love through the sacramental meal He ate with them. He gave Himself to them, just as He would on the Cross a short time later.

Here before us, on the Lord’s Table whenever we partake, is liquid and solid love – given for you. Here is the power to keep His commandment. And here before us every day, in all of the ways that Jesus offers Himself to us each day, we have Jesus Christ, love incarnate and the power to love.

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”

Resolution: I resolve to find one specific way to love today.

Prayer: Father, as You have loved us by sending Your Son; Jesus, as You have loved us by giving up Your life for us; so may You give us the gift of love through Your Spirit that we may obey Your commandment to love and be made like our Master in all things. Amen.

Points for Meditation:

1. As you meditate on the Gospel narratives of Christ’s betrayal, Passion, Crucifixion, and Resurrection, meditate on the love of God as He gives them through the life of Christ.

2. As you prepare to partake of the Lord’s Supper this week, take extra care to prepare yourself by meditating on the Lord in His Supper.

Book of Common Prayer

foot washing

Fr. Charles Erlandson

Give Us This Day daily devotional

2014-03-26T22:53:37-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Thursday of Lent 3 – Mark 11:12-26

Last updated on: March 26, 2014 at 10:53 pm By Fr. Charles Erlandson

Mark 11:12-26

Nasty, mean Jesus! Who does he think he is – causing a fig tree to wither? Obviously, he wasn’t environmentally friendly. Maybe we can wish this side of Jesus away by taking our Jeffersonian scissors to the parts of the Bible we don’t like and neatly excising them.

Nasty Jesus!

If our reaction isn’t necessarily one of disdain for the one who withers trees, it’s likely at least to be confusion. Maybe we’re not perturbed that Jesus withered the fig tree, but we might be questioning why.

The truth is, once again, that you are the fig tree in this story. It’s amazing how many times God has written you into the Bible, hidden in the symbols and stories of Scripture. But here we all are, and we should not be surprised at what the Lord has to say to us, if we know Him.

When Jesus first spotted the fig tree, He noticed the leaves on it, and from a distance it looked like a healthy fig tree that was bearing its fruit in season. In ancient Israel, fig trees would bear fruit before their leaves, and so when Jesus saw the leaves, He assumed that He would find fruit.

What He found, however, was a barren tree but one that should have produced fruit. Therefore, Jesus cursed the tree, and there’s the problem. I can’t believe in a Jesus who would curse a poor innocent tree. We have a problem with God cursing things, it seems.

So why does He cause the fig tree to wither? Are we to imagine a scene from Bruce Almighty in which Jesus points His finger randomly at bits of His creation and causes them to blow up – just because He can?

The fig tree, of course, is not just a fig tree. It is the nation of Israel, God’s tree that He had carefully planted and cultivated. But in the end, Israel bore leaves but no fruit, and now God had come to judge His people.

Why should this surprise us? Isn’t this the message of the very first Psalm?

“He (the wise and righteous man) shall be like a tree

Planted by the rivers of water,

That brings forth its fruit in its season,

Whose leaf also shall not wither;

And whatever he does shall prosper.

The ungodly are not so,

But are like the chaff which the wind drives away.

Didn’t John try to warn us that when the Christ came this is what He would do? “And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Luke 3:9).

If you’re offended that Jesus cursed a fig tree and it withered and died, then I’ve got some bad news for you: you’re not going to like the Final Judgment and may not be too crazy about eternity. Shouldn’t we expect that a righteous, faithful, and holy God would follow through on the promises He made to us? That He would bless those who were faithful and bore fruit and would curse those who didn’t?

From the beginning, John tried to warn us: “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!” The King is here, and He has His winnowing fork in His hand to separate the wheat from the chaff. The King is coming, and when He comes again to judge both the quick and the dead, some will wither before His holy Word!

Do not think it strange that Jesus curses the fig tree on the Monday before His Crucifixion, for He has come to remove the curse upon mankind and the earth.

“Do you see that fig tree?” He is saying. “That fig tree is all of you. If you fail to produce good fruit in this life, then I shall make sure you never produce fruit again! But that fig tree is also Me. Because none of you can produce good fruit on your own and all of you are doomed to die and be thrown into the fire, I am going to be that tree for you.”

“By the fruit of a Tree you died, and by the fruit of a Tree you shall live. When you presumed to feed yourself and give yourself life, on that day you surely died. But on the day when you die to yourself and bend to feed off Me, on that day you shall surely live.”

“Cursed is everyone who shall hang on a tree (Galatians 3:13; Deuteronomy 21:23). And so I shall hang on the Tree for you and bear your fruitlessness for you, for my leaves are for the healing of the nations (Revelation 22:3). I will become for you the fruit that hangs on the Tree, the Cross, and I will be for you the Tree of Life. Eat of my fruit and become a part of me, and you shall have life.”

Therefore, bear fruits worthy of repentance. You have had Advent to prepare for the Life which is Christ, and now you also have Lent. Hear, then, the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, how He said, “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore, by their fruits you will know them” (Matthew 7:18-20).

Seek Jesus, the Tree of Life. Seek to be united to Him today, and so shall you be made into a tree of life that bears good fruit when He comes.

Prayer: Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that the words which we have heard this day with our outward ears, may, through thy grace, be so grafted inwardly in our hearts, that they may bring forth in us the fruit of good living, to the honor and praise of thy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Point for Meditation:

1. Meditate on your being the fig tree that deserves to be cursed and die and how Jesus has turned you into a tree of righteousness fed by Him.

2. Praise God for the fruit that He has caused to grow in your life.

3. Consider in what ways you have been barren before the Lord.

4. Practice thinking of every event you encounter today as an opportunity to either bear fruit in Christ or to prepare yourself to bear fruit.

Resolution: I resolve to find one way to consciously seek to eat of the fruit of life, Jesus Christ, today and to prepare the ground of my heart so that He may bear His fruit in me.

Book of Common Prayer

Bruce Almighty

Fr. Charles Erlandson

Give Us This Day daily devotional

2014-03-18T01:01:14-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Tuesday of Lent 2 – John 10:1-30 – Part III

Last updated on: March 18, 2014 at 1:01 am By Fr. Charles Erlandson

Part III

Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd, both knows and leads His sheep. But this knowledge (which is love) and this leading (which is love by serving) means that the Good Shepherd also gives His life for the sheep (verse 11 and 15).

Jesus, the Good Shepherd, loves His sheep: He loves you more than father, mother, husband, wife love you. Ultimately, He loves you and leads you by being willing to die for you. He gave His life for you by becoming like you. The Incarnation is not merely a necessary stepping stone to the Crucifixion. God gave His life for you by becoming like you that you might become like Him.

The entire life of obedience of the Son, even the 30 years before His public ministry, were given for you that He might fulfill the Law for you and become obedient that you might become obedient. This life is not a life of obedience by compulsion, as if He were forced to obey, and it wasn’t a life of automatic obedience, as if since He was also God the human Christ didn’t have to choose to obey. No, this life of obedience was a life of love and submission, willingly undertaken for the joys set before Him. One of those joys was our redemption that we might join Him in His life.

But He also did give His life by becoming obedient, even to the point of death, even the death of the Cross. The Good Shepherd sacrificed His life that the bad sheep might become good sheep and live.

But this life of love, this knowledge of us and service for us cannot be one-sided. What should be the response of the sheep whom He has delivered from wandering and starvation and wild beasts, from sin and death and Satan?

If we want to be His good sheep, we must follow Him in all things. All things. This means the Resurrection and heaven, but it also means the Cross and humiliation. To follow the Good Shepherd, you must be willing to follow him even to the point of death, even if you don’t feel like it.

You want to know something? He didn’t “feel” like being crucified either. He asked for the cup to be taken from Him 3 times, and 3 times the Father said “No.” Do you think it felt good to be nailed to the Cross and have the blood and life drain from you? Do you think He had a good time when He took upon Himself the sins of the world? But in spite of His own desires and human feelings, He obeyed the voice of His Father. He could have said, “Because I don’t feel like it, I won’t do it. Let men die in their sins – but not me.”

The Cross which you see in your church and on your Bibles and in your lives is Christ’s shepherd’s staff, turned into an instrument of death . . . but then into an instrument of life. The Cross, wherever you see it, is a symbol of Jesus Christ your Good Shepherd.

But now you must be the good sheep. As He gave His life for you, you must give your life to Him. It’s unlikely that you will die a martyr’s death for Him: most are not called to this. Instead, you are called to something much more difficult: to learn to love and serve Him as He has first loved and served you; to obey the will of the Father as Christ and the angels and saints in heaven obey it; and to stop wandering and going your own way each day but instead follow wherever He leads you.

Jesus Christ is your Good Shepherd, who knows you better than you know yourself. There are many dangers in this world – and many of them lie within ourselves. But the Good Shepherd will lead you safely through all of them. Learn to hear His voice and learn to follow. But follow, wherever His steps lead, even if they lead through the valley of suffering, because He will lead you to greener pastures on the other side.

Yes, the steps of your Good Shepherd led to the Cross, but it is by following those same steps, that you shall also follow Him into heaven. And there you will find heavenly food and living water to refresh you. There you will find safety and peace forevermore.

Prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, the good Shepherd of the sheep, who came to seek and to save that which was lost; I beg you to be present today in your power with the sheep for whom You gave Your life. Show forth Your compassion to the helpless, enlighten the ignorant, protect those in peril, and bring home the wanderers in safety to Your fold. Feed those who hunger and clothe those who are naked, with the food and clothing that You are; who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.

Point for Meditation and Resolution: In what ways in the Good Shepherd asking you to lay down your life for Him? It might be in the sins that He is directing you to repent from during Lent. There might be some thing in this life that you are too attached to that is distracting you from Him. There may be some form of seeking and worshiping Him that He is calling you to. Choose one of these and resolve to follow Him in laying down your life for Him today.

Give Us This Day

Anglican

blood

Book of Common Prayer

Cross

Fr. Charles Erlandson

Give Us This Day daily devotional

2017-12-24T00:22:11-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

St. John the Evangelist Feast Day – Revelation 1

Last updated on: December 24, 2017 at 12:22 am By Fr. Charles Erlandson

St. John the Evangelist – Revelation 1

Who is Jesus Christ?

There are many ways in which He has revealed Himself to us, and all of these are important. Sometimes I think the dominant way contemporary Christians see Jesus is as a good friend. He’s kinda just one of the guys, though definitely the leader of the pack. We can almost picture Him in blue jeans, and we’re sure He would never be caught dead wearing vestments! At other times, particularly in contemporary praise choruses, it’s almost as if He’s our lover, and we sing passionately about our feelings for Him.

On St. John’s Day, I like St. John’s way of seeing Him. Now before we see Jesus as John saw Him, we should remember a few things about John. This is the same John who Jesus saw fishing with his brother James and father Zebedee when He called John to Himself. This is the John who spent 3 years of his life following Jesus as His disciple and the same John who saw the many miracles of Jesus and heard His teaching. He is the John who saw Jesus transfigured in all His glory on the mountain, the John who witnessed His Crucifixion, and the John who took Jesus’ own mother in with him to his home. He is the disciple whom Jesus loved and who reclined intimately on the breast of Jesus at the Last Supper.

Because John hung out with Jesus for 3 years, and was one of the 3 closest friends of Jesus, we might expect John to see Jesus as He appeared to him when He was still on earth. We might expect him to see Him as the one who now called Him “friend” and no longer a slave or servant.

But how Jesus Christ actually reveals Himself to John is so glorious, so awesome, so terrifying, that John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, when he sees Him falls at His feet as if dead. This is not a conscious act of prostration before Jesus that John commits: it’s an unconscious, involuntary reaction that St. John has when he sees Jesus Christ in His glory. It is a reaction of fear, the kind of fear that makes a grown man who has seen persecution and has been exiled to Patmos quake in his knees and lose control of his bodily functions.

What was it that John saw? Why would he have this reaction to one he loved so much and was so intimate with?

What John saw was Jesus Christ as He is. What he saw was one like the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the feet and girded about the chest with a golden band. What John saw was One whose head and hair were white as wool, as white as snow and whose eyes were like a flame of fire. He saw One whose feet were like fine brass as if refined in a fiery furnace, and what he heard was One whose voice is the sound of many waters. He saw the One who had seven stars in His hand and a sharp two-edged sword that is living and powerful and can pierce, even to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and can discern the thoughts and intents of the heart.

John saw all this and One whose countenance was like the sun shining in its strength. So he fell at His feet as if dead.

Is this the way we see Jesus Christ? Is this the way we come into His presence? I don’t think it is most of the time, or, for some of us, ever.

It’s important to realize that John was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day, and, as other parts of Revelation make clear, he is partaking of a heavenly worship service. John is seeing a vision of Jesus Christ as He is when He comes to us in our worship on the Lord’s Day.

But is this how we see Him? “Come as you are,” we’re told. “We’re a church that’s for people just like you. Come in your blue jeans, as Jesus would come. Come slurping your Starbucks, and come at the last minute. Come with your head filled with your plans for what you’ll do with what’s left of your weekend. Come and sing happy, uplifting songs that will make you feel good about yourself and get you in the right mood.”

“Come, sit casually, and listen to a lecture about how to lead the good life or an inspirational talk about how you can solve life’s problems. Come be entertained by our light rock band and preacher who knows a lot of good jokes and anecdotes.”

The Jesus that John came to – the Resurrected, Ascended Christ who sits enthroned on the right hand of God and is the King of kings, surrounded in glory by the 4 Living Creatures and 24 elders and a rainbow and lightnings, thunderings, and voices – is the same terrifying God that the Old Testament prophets saw. This Jesus Christ is the God of Glory who Moses saw on Mt. Sinai, when He saw the God of Israel, under whose feet was a pavement of sapphire (Exodus 24:10), and who made the top of the mountain a consuming fire (Exodus 24:17) and made Moses’ face shine. The Jesus Christ that John saw was the One who holy Isaiah saw, surrounded by cherubim and seraphim, the sight of which made Isaiah cry out: “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts” (6:5).

This is the Lord of Glory who Ezekiel saw, the One sitting on the throne, surrounded by angels and the living creatures, lightning and the noise of many waters, and fire all around. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. When Ezekiel saw it, he fell on his face (1:28).

This Jesus Christ who John saw, and whose presence made John fall at His feet, this Jesus Christ is the Resurrected and Ascended Lord who we worship. Let us come into His presence seeing Him for who He is.

This is the Lord who has revealed Himself to us. Mercifully, He is also the same Lord who laid His right hand on John and said to him: “Do not be afraid.” And so, knowing that we come before a Terrible, Consuming Fire who makes us want to fall down dead, we also come boldly before the Throne. This same Jesus who is the Shekinah Glory and is Heaven itself, is also the One who was born a baby and made man for us.

Let us come before Him today and every day with both fear and trembling, with praise and thanksgiving, and with quiet confidence in His mercy and goodness to us.

Resolution and Point for Meditation: I resolve to spend some time today meditating on who Jesus Christ is, especially as He has revealed Himself in glory. As I do this, I will listen for His voice and what He is telling me today is pleasing in His sight.

Prayer: O God, who on the mountain revealed to chosen witnesses Your only-begotten Son, wonderfully transfigured in dazzling clothes and burning fire; Mercifully grant that we, being delivered from the distractions of this world, may be permitted to behold the King in His beauty, who with You, O Father, and You, O Holy Spirit, lives and reigns, one God, world without end. Amen.

Merciful Lord, we beseech thee to cast thy bright beams of light upon thy Church, that it, being illumined by the doctrine of thy blessed Apostle and Evangelist Saint John, may so walk in the light of thy truth, that it may at length attain to life everlasting; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

St. John on Patmos – U.S. Public Domain

2013-11-19T17:47:31-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Wednesday of Trinity 25 – 1 Peter 4:12-19

Last updated on: November 19, 2013 at 5:47 pm By Fr. Charles Erlandson

1 Peter 4:12-19

The truth is that we as Christians suffer. As our Lord first suffered, we must suffer. This isn’t a very popular teaching. You won’t hear many other preachers preaching about it these days. But it’s one of the most profound and potent truths that God wants to teach us through His Son.

I want to preface all that I will say by making a qualification.

Much of what the New Testament has to say about suffering is that it is the result of our own sin. If that’s the case, then we’d better deal with it by confession and repentance. And much of what the New Testament has to say about suffering is about suffering that comes from persecution, and especially the reward that comes with this.

But I will be talking about the ordinary suffering that most of us undergo in life, the kind of daily suffering that many, if not all, of you face each day.

I can’t claim that God will miraculously take away all of your suffering this morning.

But I can claim, prophesying in the name of the Lord, that if you hear and believe His voice this morning, as He speaks about the suffering in your life, that He has the power to miraculously transform it by the power of His Son. I can proclaim that even the most mundane suffering in your life is overflowing with meaning and power – if only you would learn to suffer with and for Jesus Christ.

The most important truths about suffering for the Christian are these:

1. We are united to Christ in suffering

2. We are sanctified by Christ in suffering

3. We are glorified in Christ by suffering.

First, we are united to Christ through suffering. Through baptism and by faith, we are united to Jesus Christ. Guess what? When we’re so united to Him, we get all of Him. His resurrection, yes, but first His sufferings. We are united to Jesus Christ in His suffering.

Jesus Christ suffered for us. As Peter puts it: “Christ suffered that we might be saved” (1 Peter 2:24). We know that He suffered for us because He loves us – but so what? He suffered that He might bring us to God (1 Peter 3:18). His suffering unites us to God, but we must participate in this suffering.

How? By suffering with and for Him. If we really are one with Jesus Christ, then we really share in His suffering. We all know how it is possible for a husband or wife or father or mother to suffer sympathetically with one they love: the suffering of the beloved is the suffering of the lover. This is especially true of Jesus Christ and His Church.

Peter assumes that we are partakers of Christ’s sufferings (I Peter 4:13). How? Our suffering becomes His suffering. We share His suffering, but even better is that He shares our suffering with us. He suffered throughout His life – especially on the Cross – for your sins and mine. But as our High Priest, He still shares in your suffering. When we suffer, we suffer with Christ, and He with us: this is the mystery or our union with Him. And most of the time we miss it.

What’s more – our suffering actually brings us to Him. I don’t know about you, but when I’m in trouble, it leads me to rely on Him and cry out to Him (except for the times I’m being blind and foolish).

In your suffering, and I believe this applies to all of your suffering, and not just the supererogatory acts of suffering, you are united with Jesus Christ. When you remember that you are united to Jesus in your suffering, then you are never alone in your suffering. Jesus is with you. He was there, in suffering, before you, and He’s there now in your suffering.

This is how we can accept suffering, and, as Sts. Paul and James discovered, even rejoice in it!

It’s not just that we theoretically are united with Jesus in our suffering: there is real power to sanctify, and power to save us. We share in His suffering, and He in ours – not usually as punishment but as a means of grace, of Him sanctifying us and making us holy and obedient, as Jesus Christ Himself had to learn.

Without Christ, when we suffer, we are bearing the consequences of our sin or the sinful and fallen nature of the world. It’s because of our sinful passions that we suffer.

But when we suffer with Christ, and through Him, then our suffering takes on a redemptive nature because we are united with Him. Our suffering sanctifies us because it leads us to God Himself, that we might be holy as He is holy.

Our suffering leads us to God. Hopefully, it leads us to obedience, as even Christ learned obedience by what He suffered (Hebrews 5:8). In His humanity, His obedience wasn’t automatic: He had to learn to actively be submissive, for example, to Joseph and Mary, and in the Garden of Gethsemane He had to actively learn to obey – partially through what He suffered.

Your suffering, if you allow God to use it for His loving purposes – will drive you to obedience.

Suffering also leads to faith. In 1 Peter 1:6-9 we see the pattern that suffering leads to faith which leads to salvation. In 1:7, Peter teaches that the testing of suffering refines your faith. Suffering is God’s sanctifying, purifying fire. I’ve seen this firsthand in the lives of the saints.

Suffering leads to consolation. In 2 Corinthians 1:7 Paul reminds us that if we are partakers of the sufferings of Christ, we will be partakers of His consolation. Where our suffering abounds, Gods’ grace and goodness to us abound even more. As St. Augustine said, in his famous Confessions: “greater suffering produces greater joy.”

Suffering leads us to God. In learning obedience, in crying for help, in giving thanks for deliverance and consolation, suffering is meant by God to lead us to Him. The goal is to submit our wills to His and learn obedience, that is, to be made like the Son.

Commit your soul to God when you suffer, Peter says in 4:19. Now where did He learn this? From Christ, who said, in His Passion: “Into thy hands I commit my spirit.”

We are glorified in Christ through suffering. Our suffering, if we suffer with Christ and for Him and if we are sanctified by our suffering, leads to glory for Christ and for us in Him. If we are truly united with Him and if we truly share all things, then in the end we will also share in His glory. If we cling to His Cross, His Resurrection will take hold of us. If we fast with Him in Lent and suffer on Good Friday, then Easter will certainly come! Even the prophets could see that Christ must suffer first and then receive glory (1 Peter 1:11), and His life is the pattern for our life in Him.

Therefore, even in this life we should “Rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy” (4:13). Christ is our hope of glory, and where He has gone we will one day go.

In this life of suffering, you must suffer with Christ – or surely you will suffer without Him.

I know some of the suffering of a few of you, and I want nothing more than for it to be used to bring you closer to God. But God knows all of the suffering of all of you, and He desires for you to receive it for the good of your soul.

Who among you, if you were watching in person the Passion and suffering of your Lord, wouldn’t gladly carry His cross for Him for an hour – or more?

In the same way, learn to bear whatever cross He has given you in this life.

If you learn to think of your suffering this way, as a suffering redeemed by Jesus Christ in the presence of Jesus Christ, then the Passion of Jesus Christ will become your passion.

If you learn to suffer through and for Him, then God’s promise is this: that the Jesus who suffered and died for you will be with you in your suffering, and out of it, He will bring health and life to your soul.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, You created me and most lovingly care for me. I accept all my sufferings most willingly, and as a truly obedient child I resign myself to your holy will. Grant me the strength to accept generously your loving visitation, and never let me grieve your faithful heart by giving in to impatience and discouragement. Lord Jesus, for love of You I desire to suffer all things, because for love of me You endured such cruel torments. Jesus, I unite my pains with the ones which You suffered and I make an offering of them to the Father. O Jesus, out of the abundance of your divine goodness give me the virtues of meekness and patience, so that I may willingly carry my cross after You. Amen.

Point for Meditation: Meditate on the ways in which God desires to use your suffering to bless you by bringing you closer to Him: by disciplining you, teaching you obedience, uniting you with Him, consoling you in suffering, etc.

Resolution: I resolve to find one way today in which God intends to bless me through my suffering and to find Him in my suffering that I may be united to Him.

Give Us This Day

Anglican

Augustine’s Confessions

Bible commentary

Bible devotional

Bible study

Book of Common Prayer

daily devotional

rejoice in sufferings

sanctification

suffering

the Passion of Christ

2013-08-25T17:12:16-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Monday of 13th Sunday After Trinity – 2 Corinthians 1

Last updated on: August 25, 2013 at 5:12 pm By Fr. Charles Erlandson

2 Corinthians 1

“As you are partakers of the sufferings, so also you will partake of the consolation.”

In verse 7 of 2 Corinthians 1, St. Paul gives us the pattern for the Christian life which was also the pattern of the life of Christ: if we partake of suffering, we will also partake of glory and consolation. Now taken out of context I suppose this could be something a good Buddhist could say. For Buddha, the fundamental truth was that life was suffering; suffering is caused by desire; and therefore if you extinguish desire you will escape suffering and in a way receive consolation.

But what a contrast to true consolation, and, Yes!, even joy and glory which God promises to those who are His faithful children. This was the pattern of Jesus’ ministry: that He denied Himself and obeyed the will of the Father so that others might be comforted, healed, and saved. He sacrificed Himself for us, not just on the Cross but also during His entire public ministry of service, humility, and obedience, that we might receive God’s blessing. He was cursed that we might be blessed; He suffered that we might be consoled; He died that we might live.

But after His self-denial and suffering, He was raised to glory and exalted to the right hand of the Father so that every knee should bow and confess Him Lord of glory.

And this is to be our pattern: we suffer with and for Jesus Christ that we might also be raised and glorified with Him. What St. Paul is getting at, then, is nothing less than participation in Jesus Christ.

Every day we have many opportunities to be united with Jesus Christ and experience life with Him. Most of the time, however, we are looking for that mountaintop experience, that really good devotional time, that extra measure of blessing that we know to be the Lord’s.

But have you ever considered how many opportunities God is giving you each day to be a partaker of His Son by sharing in the sufferings of Jesus?

If this was the pattern for the Son, who is our example in all godliness, then why do we work so hard to avoid the suffering God permits? I know the human answer: we humans are averse to pain and suffering, and in one sense we should be. But as Christians, we must understand that though the suffering itself is not good and the ultimate cause of it is our sin, that what man means for evil God means for good. It was and is through suffering that the world is redeemed. We had a part in bringing in the suffering: how blessed that God allows us to participate in the redemption of suffering to save the world!

And this is exactly Paul’s point: that what Jesus Christ did in His earthly ministry He continues to do through His Body the Church. Where He preached the Gospel and served bodies and healed souls, His Body the Church is to do those same things now, by the grace of the indwelling Holy Spirit of Christ. Where He bore our sufferings that we might bear His triumph and glory, the Church must do the same thing today.

Here is what God is teaching us this morning. First, in verse 4, that God comforts us in our tribulation. We’ve all experienced that before. But God has more to tell us. One of the reasons He has comforted us is so that we may be able to comfort others. This is the same pattern we have seen before and will see again: God makes us disciples so that we can make disciples; God builds His Temple of living stones so that they can help build the Temple; and God comforts us in our suffering that we might comfort others.

This is exactly what Paul did. In verse 6 he says that he and others are afflicted for the consolation and salvation of the Corinthians. This consolation and salvation are “effective for enduring the same sufferings,” so that the Corinthians might be able to comfort others. Jesus began it all by suffering so that we might be saved; Paul suffers so that the Corinthians might be saved; and we suffer for Christ and others so that they might be saved.

How blessed to be actual partakers of the ministry of reconciliation, healing, comfort, joy, and glory of our Lord!

Do you see in this God’s call to suffer on behalf of others? This means that we must not mope and complain about our own suffering but share it with the Church. And we must not simply bear our own sufferings or rejoice in our own blessings but share those same sufferings and blessings with other believers.

We are the Body of Jesus Christ that He has commissioned to continue His ministry of suffering and consolation and salvation. But if we keep it all to ourselves, then how can Jesus minister through us? We are His appointed means of ministry in the world. And this is why it is important to share both suffering and consolation with each other, because this is the ministry of Jesus Christ.

Therefore, consider your suffering to be a participation in Jesus Christ and His suffering, in the hope that you might also participate in His consolation and glory. Look for ways that you might participate in the sufferings of others so that Jesus Christ, through you, might console and save His people.

We are partakers of Jesus Christ, but only to the degree that we also are partakers of one another, in both suffering and consolation.

Today, do not deny either yourself or others that most beautiful of blessings: participation in Jesus Christ our Lord through participation in one another.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, I thank You that you willingly suffered for me and that You allow me the privilege of suffering for You. Thank You for Your consolation that has helped me in my times of suffering and sorrow. Help me to look for ways in which I may suffer with others that I may share Your consolation with them. Direct my life and prayers today that I might become Your minister of grace today.

Points for Meditation:

1. Meditate on how God has consoled me.

2. Meditate on how I might console another.

3. Meditate on how I might help bear the suffering of another.

Resolution: I resolve to see today’s sufferings as a participation in the sufferings of Jesus. I further resolve to receive the consolation of God today that I might console others and share in their sufferings.

Give Us This Day

13th Sunday After Trinity

Book of Common Prayer

Buddha

consolation

Give Us This Day daily devotional

glory

Partakers of suffering

2013-08-21T23:51:32-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Thursday of the 12th Sunday after Trinity – Luke 23:50-24:12

Last updated on: August 21, 2013 at 11:51 pm By Fr. Charles Erlandson

Luke 23:50-24:12

I love Joseph of Arimathea!

It would be easy in this passage, with the empty tomb just around the corner, to completely forget about Joseph of Arimathea and what he has to say to us this morning. I love the roads less traveled in Scripture because they contain so many scattered jewels that I have not stopped to appreciate before.

One of the most important things we first realize about Joseph of Arimathea (from St. Matthew’s account) is that Joseph was rich. I mention this because usually Jesus is giving the rich a pretty hard time: it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. And yet what do we discover about this rich man Joseph? He was “waiting for the kingdom of God.”

On his own, a rich man has about as much chance of seeing God as a camel does of passing through the eye of a needle. But becoming spiritually poor for the sake of the riches of God, a rich man has exactly as much chance of entering the Kingdom of Heaven as a poor man.

The second strike against poor Joseph is that he was a council member of the Sanhedrin. Throughout the Gospels it is particularly the leaders of the Jews who hate, reject, and conspire against Jesus. In fact, it is the Sanhedrin that has just met and sentenced Jesus to death. But not Joseph of Arimathea.

Already, Joseph is so unlike other rich rulers in Israel, but there is more. Like Simeon and Anna back in Luke 2, Joseph was waiting for the Kingdom of God, and when he heard that Jesus had died, he went looking for it (him.)

Now Joseph could have been like any of the 12 disciples who were at this time nowhere to be found. He could have lurked about at a distance, not daring to openly profess his hope in Jesus of Nazareth. He could have secretly hired someone to find the body of Jesus so that his hands could remain clean.

But this is not what Joseph does. Making use of his God-given human authority, he marches right up to Pontius Pilate (of all people!) and asks for the body of Jesus. Now Pilate, who had already acceded to the demands of the Jews to gain favor for himself, something Joseph knew full well, might easily have not wanted to get involved. He may even have become angry. It probably took courage for Joseph to ask: in fact, Mark 15:43 says that Joseph had to “take” courage.

After Pilate had given Joseph permission for Jesus’ body, Joseph “took it down, wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a tomb that was hewn out of the rock.” How amazing that this rich man who could have ignored Jesus’ dead body, or at least had the propriety to hire someone to do his dirty work, goes and takes care of the body of Jesus himself. We must imagine the details here. Most of the time, if you’re like me, you’re in such a rush to have Jesus be resurrected that you don’t meditate on the fact that He must truly have been dead. We rush to the Crucifixion, spend some time there, and then rush to the Resurrection. But Jesus is here in His death as well, and Joseph teaches us this.

With a fatherly love, Joseph takes down the Body of the Son from the Cross. At this point Jesus’ Body is still showing the evidence of the crown of thorns, his intense flogging, his hours of agony on the Cross, the holes in His Body where the nails held Him to the Cross, and the puncture wound in His side. His Body is bloody and bloodless at the same time. It is limp and white and humanly speaking ghastly and disgusting.

This is the body this rich man himself takes down from the Cross. Joseph must take down the Cross, take out the horrible nails still in the body, and unloose the ropes that would have held the body to the Cross. Next, Joseph wraps this disfigured Body in linen, surely his own, and himself carries the Body to an expensive tomb cut out of rock. This is Joseph’s own tomb that he lays Jesus in. How symbolic! Joseph takes the dead Jesus, puts Him in his own tomb, and out of Joseph’s tomb Jesus’ resurrects. This is a picture of salvation and entrance into the Kingdom of God for all of us: Jesus dies in our place and is resurrected so that we might live with Him.

How blessed it was for Joseph to have Jesus die in his tomb! How blessed for us to have Jesus die in our place!

But what Joseph did we must also do. Joseph used the human authority God had given him and took the courage the Holy Spirit offered to ask Pilate for His Body, and we must use all that God has given us each day and seek Jesus, with courage and without regard for what others might think. Joseph himself found Jesus and took hold of His Body and carried it, and we must take up Jesus, our Cross, daily, and carry Him each day. Joseph spent his own resources, the ones God had blessed him with, and provided a place for Jesus, participating in His death that he might participate in His Resurrection. This rich ruler was not above getting his own hands bloody and dirty: no wonder that there is a tradition that Joseph of Arimathea was one of the 70 disciples.

Our challenge this morning is to be like Joseph: to seek Jesus with courage, to use the gifts of God to seek Him and serve Him, in the hope that by seeking the Kingdom of God we might, with Joseph and the thief on the cross, also enter into Paradise.

One of the primary ways we honor the body of Jesus today is to honor the Body of Jesus on earth, His Church. His Body is precious to Him, and His Body requires care. His Body is in need, and He has given each of you His riches with which you may care for His Body. More than just having a few minutes’ meditation on the need to seek Jesus in our hearts, we must seek Him in His Body, the Church, and care for it as we would the bloodied body which Joseph of Arimathea cared for.

Some in the Church are poor and weak, some are bloodied and lifeless. We all need to be ministered to with the care shown by Joseph of Arimathea.

Our goal each day should be to be with Jesus in His life; with Jesus on the Cross; with Jesus in the tomb; with Jesus in His Resurrection; and with Jesus in heaven in the presence of the Father. We do this not only in our own hearts but also in our lives, in His Body the Church, and in the world.

Prayer: Lord, I give you thanks this morning for making me rich beyond all earthly measure. I ask that by Your grace You may encourage me to seek You with those gifts and to use them to glorify You. Help me to seek You not only in my heart but also in Your Church, that I, like Joseph, may tenderly care for the Body for which You died.

Point for Meditation: In what ways has God enriched you so that you might give back His gifts for His kingdom, to care for the Body of Christ?

Resolution: I resolve today to seek Jesus with the riches God has entrusted to me. With courage and without regard to the cost to myself, I resolve to lay hold of Jesus in at least one of the ways He is calling me to serve Him today.

Book of Common Prayer

burial of Jesus

Give Us This Day daily devotional

2013-08-04T23:22:11-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Monday of Trinity 10 – Luke 19:29-40

Last updated on: August 4, 2013 at 11:22 pm By Fr. Charles Erlandson

Luke 19:29-40

The appropriate response to being in the presence of Jesus is joy and praise. Both of these things are needed, and both are present whenever Jesus is present and is received with faith.

It seems odd to be reading about the Triumphal Entry of Jesus on Palm Sunday at the end of summer, in the middle of the long season of Trinity that doesn’t have the landmarks of other seasons like Christmas or Easter. But the Triumphal Entry is a scene that Christians ought to re-enact every day of the year, and so this is a passage for every day of the year and not just one day, just as Christmas and Easter are here every day of the year and not only one.

The truth is that Jesus rides into your life every morning. The question is not “Will He come today?” but “How will I respond when He does come?” Every day we are part of the multitude of disciples in verse 37, some of who rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works they have seen. Jesus had done no fresh miracle on Palm Sunday: what is notable is that the multitude of disciples chooses to respond this day to the mighty works they had seen. And if you are a Christian, you too have seen the mighty works of God. You, too, by faith are a witness to the birth of Jesus Christ, the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. You, too, have seen how God has taken the sick and sinful people in your life and healed and saved them. Like me, you have seen the mighty works of God in your own life.

So what is your response today?

That multitude of disciples on Palm Sunday responded with the loud voice of joy and praise because both joy and praise are necessary. Joy comes in and praise goes out of Jesus’ disciples. Joy is subjective (though it has an objective cause: the presence of Jesus) and inward: it is the personal response to the presence of Jesus in your life, through His life, His Word, and His deeds. Joy is for our benefit, but it is a sign to God that we have responded in faith. It is just such joy that has characterized the saints of the past whenever they see Jesus. One of my favorite responses to the presence of Jesus is that of the wise men, who showed by their response both their faith and wisdom. In Matthew 2:10, we read that when the wise men saw the Star which stood over where the child Jesus was “they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy.” Not simply “they rejoiced” or “they rejoiced greatly,” but “they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy.”

That is to be the first part of our response.

The second part is praise. Praise is outward in nature, for it is not what comes into us but what comes out of us, out of our encounter with Jesus and out of our joy. Unlike joy, which is partially for our benefit, praise is entirely for God’s glory. There is no other motivation in praise than to give to God the glory that is His.

Sometimes the world wants to silence our praise. “Teacher, rebuke your disciples,” the Pharisees tell Jesus.

But Jesus’ response is “I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones themselves would immediately cry out.”

You can’t contain the joy of God’s people or the praise of God’s creation. Silence His disciples if you can, but try shutting up the sun and the moon. “The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard” (Psalm 19.)

So let us join our voices with the multitude of disciples in saying this morning: “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

When you do, even if you are alone in rejoicing and praising this morning, you are never alone. You are always part of the great multitude of disciples, called the Church, who rejoice and praise God every day. These are the saints around the world who sing God’s praises, and they are joined by those who have passed into heaven before us. To their voices and ours are added the voices of the angels and archangels who never stop rejoicing and praising.

Joy comes in and praise goes out of Jesus’ disciples whenever they truly meet Him. Seek Jesus today, rejoice, and give praise to God

Prayer: Lord, may I, your humble servant like Zacchaeus, seek and find You today. May I remember Your mighty works both when You were on earth and those You have done in my life. When I see You today, as many times as I see You, may I rejoice with exceedingly great joy and cry out with loud praises to You.

Point for Meditation: Joy and praise are intimately connected and effect each other. 1. Spend some time praising God today and expect to experience joy in the process. Sing some of your favorite spiritual songs: better yet, gather some of your friends and sing them together with gusto!

2. Find a favorite Psalm and recite it aloud with emphasis.

3. Find a part of God’s creation that brings you joy and experience God through it today.

Resolution: I resolve today to bring to mind the might things that God has done. I resolve to respond with joy and praise, even if these might be small in the beginning.

Book of Common Prayer

Give Us This Day daily devotional

2013-07-19T20:38:27-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Saturday of Trinity 7 – Luke 14:25-35

Last updated on: July 19, 2013 at 8:38 pm By Fr. Charles Erlandson

Luke 14:25-35

They lied to us. Every parent, pastor, teacher, relative, and friend who told us that all we had to do was show up for church one hour a week or say the Sinner’s Prayer once upon a time or go forward at the Crusade lied to us.

This is exactly what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called “cheap grace.” It is, in the words of Bonhoeffer, “grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.” And it is the antithesis, the precise opposite, of what Jesus truly says to all who desire to be His disciple.

The truth is that every church eventually makes just the kind of disciples it sets out to make. Churches that expect members to show up one hour a week will get disciples who show up for one hour a week. Churches that keep feeding milk will get baby disciples. And churches that preach and teach from passages like Luke 14:25-35 at least have the hope of producing true disciples of Jesus Christ.

It is a proud and dangerous thing to minimize the words of Jesus Christ or His call on our lives. “Great multitudes” went with Jesus in verse 25, but I’m pretty sure (though this passage doesn’t say so) that there weren’t nearly as many left by the time He’d finished. His words are hard, and yet they are the very words of life.

For Jesus says in verse 25 that anyone who does not hate his family members and even his own life cannot be His disciple. Everyone knows this is not literal (and yes, you can say that certain parts of the Bible aren’t literal and still believe everything the Bible says). We know we are not to hate, but to love. What we don’t always know is that what Jesus means is that everything in life, even family, even self, is to be sacrificed, given up for His sake. We are to love every human, especially our family, but we are to love God even more.

As if that weren’t enough, and because for most of us it’s not enough, Jesus makes Himself even more plain in verse 27: “He who does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple,” and again in verse 33: “So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple.”

Did you feel it? Did you feel the squirm of the Old Man, writhing and slithering and making up 1001 protests for why this can’t be right?

And yet it is exactly what Jesus says to you this morning: “If you do not forsake all, you cannot be My disciple.”

This is why He tells the brief parable of the person building a tower who must first count the cost. There is a tremendous cost to being a disciple of Jesus Christ, and the price is everything. There is not a single part of my life that God didn’t create and not a single part that He doesn’t own. There isn’t a single part that can be held back, for that is what the whole burnt offering of Romans 1 is – to sacrifice, give up, and deny every part of my Old Man, so that God may give me the New Man, Jesus Christ.

Now personally, I’ve calculated the cost/reward ratio with God and discovered that it is pretty good. I give up my sinful self that causes everyone harm and makes us all miserable and would die soon anyway, and in return I get to live with God forever, restored to fullness of life and righteousness.

But back to the price. I am to bear this cross, this cross of self-sacrifice every day for the rest of my life. It hurts. I would be one of the liars of cheap grace if I told you it didn’t.

And it’s hard. Again, I would be a liar if I told you it weren’t.

It’s costly. It means paying the price of giving up what I desire to do, every day and at every moment.

And yet the One who bore His Cross – that is, your Cross – for you, will bear this cross of crucifying the Old Man as well. In fact, He already has, and He continues to every day. And He’s put others in your life to help you carry your burden, for all together we are the Body of Christ and carry His Cross with Him.

Count the cost, because the cost of even the smallest of your sins is separation from God. Count the cost, because the cost of even the smallest of your sins was the Cross of Jesus Christ.

Count the cost, therefore, not just in cosmic eternal terms, but also in daily, momentary terms. Whenever the chance arises to deny yourself that little sin or overindulgence or pride or laziness, take that opportunity to deny yourself and follow the Master.

Thank God that the cross He has asked you to bear is to be born by others as well. And thank God that He only makes you bear the cross He has asked you to bear one splinter, one moment, one opportunity, at a time. In so bearing your daily cross, it becomes a part of His Cross, for as we are joined with Christ in His resurrection and glory, so we are joined to Christ in His suffering and death.

P.S. I told you in yesterday’s meditation that you would hear today about the price of admission to God’s Feast and Kingdom – so you can’t say I didn’t warn you!

Prayer: Take, O Lord, and receive my entire liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my whole will. All that I am and all that I possess You have given me. I surrender it all to You to be disposed of according to Your will. Give me only Your love and Your grace; with these I will be rich enough and will desire nothing more. (Ignatius of Loyola)

Point for Meditation:

How willing am I to forsake all for the sake of Jesus Christ? When I examine myself honestly, what things do I continue to cling to above Christ? Take one of those things and resolve today to practice giving it up for the sake of Christ.

Resolution: I resolve today to bear one splinter today that I refused to bear yesterday. It might be one of the things I’ve already resolved to bear earlier this week, and it might be something else the Lord is asking me to bear (which may be something to take on or something to give up). If the opportunity arises today, I will share my burden with another or help someone else bear his.

Book of Common Prayer

Give Us This Day daily devotional

the Cross of Christ

the Sinner’s Prayer

2013-07-12T21:13:23-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Saturday of Trinity 6 – Luke 12:49-59

Last updated on: July 12, 2013 at 9:13 pm By Fr. Charles Erlandson

Luke 12:49-59

For being the Prince of Peace, Jesus sure knows how to stir up trouble!

The truth is, of course, that we are the ones who have disturbed the peace of the cosmos. We are the ones who have broken the law and are to be hauled into court to pay our debt. We are the ones who are at war with God and therefore at war with one another, at war within ourselves, and at war with nature. In fact, the traditional list of 3 kinds of conflict that literary textbooks talk about – man vs. man, man vs. himself, and man vs. nature – is incomplete, for it leaves out the most important kind of conflict of all: man vs. God.

We expect that when God walked into the world that everything would be made better immediately and without any fuss. We thought that we could start a war against God, change sides in the war, and then there would be no more war. As violently as the war began, we would have liked to believe, is how peacefully it will simply ebb away.

But the problem is that this isn’t the case. To bring peace to a war at world with itself, war must be waged, and as General Sherman said, “War is Hell!” To turn an upside down right side up again requires a cataclysm that is violent and very disturbing. And to make known the reality of this war and the 2 opposing sides, it was necessary that the Light of the World illuminate the fundamental division that exists in the world: the division between sheep and goats, disciples of Jesus Christ and rejecters of Jesus Christ, and the children of light and the children of darkness.

The disturbing, violent nature of the cataclysmic work of redemption reverberates throughout the end of Luke chapter 12: in fact, it’s been thundering all around us ever since Peter made his confession in Luke 9:20 and Jesus began to teach about the real nature of what the Christ of God has come to do.

We hear it in Jesus’ voice when He says in verse 50, “But I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how distressed I am till it is accomplished.” Jesus knows the terrible price that must be paid to bring peace to the earth and to humans once again. He knows, and He sets His face like flint to obey the will of the Father. And He is greatly distressed while He waits to pay that terrible price. As He gets closer to the Cross, that Cross begins to get heavier and heavier upon Him. This is the deeper magic of Tolkien’s The Return of the King, in which the closer Frodo gets to Mount Doom to destroy the Ring, the heavier it gets.

We feel Jesus’ distress and the shaking of the earth as Jesus reveals the growing chasm between Good and Evil. “Do you suppose that I came to give peace on earth? I tell you, not at all, but rather division,” He tells us in verse 51. Even families are divided by the coming of the Christ of God because some will accept Him and some will reject Him.

And then Jesus directs our attention beyond His own pain and conflict, and beyond our present pain and conflict, and to the end of time instead. Even time is disturbed by the coming of the Christ, so that the great dividing line in history is time Before Christ (B.C.) and time In the Year of Our Lord (Anno Domini, or A.D.) Time is also divided because within any given time period, some will not discern the time and will be unprepared for the coming of the Judge, while others will redeem the time. Some will settle with the Judge by accepting His terms of peace, and others will never make peace with Him and will therefore be thrown into the prison of Hell.

This is the terrible war and earthquake and apocalypse of the Christ of God!

And yet for the Christian it is a message of peace, and He truly is the Prince of Peace. The violence and divisions and mighty motion is all necessary to bring peace, but in the end, there is the offer of peace from the Prince of Peace. The terms of peace are to accept the terrible price that was paid to buy peace for us. The terms of peace are unconditional surrender to the One who has conquered for you: the terms of peace are to allow the Prince of Peace to conquer you.

To receive this peace, therefore, we must be united to the Prince of Peace. And here is where we sometimes don’t understand. Being united with Jesus Christ means we partake of all of Him. Will we be baptized with the same baptism with which He was baptized? The baptism He is talking about in verse 50 is His Passion and Crucifixion for us: it meant His death. And if we want to be baptized with Him we must also die, but die to self that we might be raised to life with Him.

This is sometimes a deeply disturbing and terrible thing. You won’t hear many TV preachers – or preachers anywhere – talk about this. It may not be a popular teaching, and yet we all know, in our hearts that it’s true. But making peace with Jesus Christ may actually be painful and difficult. Making the choice to do the will of the Father and give up self causes a great deal of turmoil in our souls. It hurts, it disturbs me, it’s sometime odious to turn from what I want to do in order to serve God. And making a choice to love and serve God with all of your heart and soul and mind when others around you are not making this choice will be the source of distress in your life.

But do not be afraid. When your soul is in trouble over the things that God has asked you to do, be at peace, knowing that you are at peace with God through the Prince of Peace. The Christ who suffered for you also rose for you, and the Christ with whom you must suffer is also the Christ with whom you will be raised up.

For the world which still rejects the Prince of Peace, there can be no peace on earth. But blessed are the peacemakers, those who seek peace with God, for they shall be called the sons of God!

Prayer: Father, may You, through Jesus Christ the Prince of Peace, give to me the peace that passes all understanding and keep my heart and mind in the knowledge and love of You and of Your Son, Jesus Christ. May Your blessing, the blessing of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost be with me and remain with me always. Amen.

Point for Meditation: Examine the causes of distress in your life. Which ones are caused by running away from God like Jonah? Which ones are caused by the worries and cares of the world? Which ones are caused by the heaviness of what God has asked you to do?

Resolution: I resolve to settle with God whatever I know is not settled with Him in my life. Choose the one thing that most distresses you in your relationship with God and in the things He has asked you to do, and offer that to Him as a peace offering.

Book of Common Prayer

Give Us This Day daily devotional

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What does Paul tell Timothy to flee from in 2 Timothy?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Persecution False teaching Evil desires of youth The love of money

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Book Reviews Featured Give Us This Day Give Us This Day Devotional love me love my wife Love My Wife Reformed Catholicism Blog Spirit-Reality Take This Cup Uncategorized

Select a Month February 2022 November 2021 October 2021 August 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 September 2018 July 2018 March 2018 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011

TRENDING AT PATHEOS Evangelical