Chap­ter six of Liv­ing the Cross Cen­tered Life is a med­i­ta­tion on “the cup of God’s wrath.”  In Star­ing into the Cup:  The Shock of Geth­se­mane, Mahaney explores why Jesus ago­nized so greatly on the night of his betrayal.

In our mod­ern cul­ture of com­fort and con­ve­nience, our assump­tion is that Jesus was so dis­tressed before being betrayed by Judas because he was ter­ri­fied by the prospect of cru­ci­fix­ion.  I don’t mean to dimin­ish Jesus’ phys­i­cal sac­ri­fice or suf­fer­ing in the least; cru­ci­fix­ion, doc­tors say, is one of the most painful ways to die.

How­ever, it was not the prospect of phys­i­cal pain that caused Jesus so much agony in the Gar­den of Geth­se­mane.  Rather, it was the fact that God the Father had sep­a­rated him­self from Jesus and was prepar­ing to pour out the cup of his wrath on him.  Mahaney notes, “That’s why there’s shud­der­ing ter­ror and deep dis­tress for Him at this moment.  In the cru­cible of human weak­ness, he’s brought face-to-face with the abhor­rent real­ity of bear­ing our iniq­uity and becom­ing the object of God’s full and furi­ous wrath” (80).

What caused Jesus such agony?  Not the prospect of phys­i­cal pain, though surely that caused him dis­tress as well.  Jesus was most ago­nized by the ter­ri­ble real­ity that God’s wrath for the sins of the world – past, present, and future – would be placed upon him, and that would cause God the Father to for­sake him for us.  Here are a few ques­tions for discussion:

1. Does the prospect of the phys­i­cal pain of the cross or the sep­a­ra­tion from God sound more painful to you?  Why?

2. Jesus’ suf­fer­ing on the cross included God cred­it­ing him with every sin, though he never com­mit­ted any (Heb. 4:15–16) and bear­ing  the full wrath of God against sin (Rom. 1:18).  Why are these aspects absolutely nec­es­sary for our salvation?

3. In many good churches, peo­ple talk about “med­i­tat­ing on the cross.”  What is meant by that phrase?  Do you “med­i­tate on the cross?”  If so, when and why?

4. Mahaney notes that God the Father did not answer Jesus’ pas­sion­ate entreaties in the Gar­den of Geth­se­mane.  He says, “Lis­ten to this verse again for the very first time:  For God so loved the world…that he is silent to his Son’s ago­niz­ing appeal” (81).  How does this demon­strate God’s incred­i­ble love for us?

Next week we will study chap­ter seven, “Your Face in the Crowd:  Our Part in the Savior’s Death.”

This evening at 6:30 pm we will cel­e­brate as we affirm over 40 new mem­bers, two new dea­cons, and par­tic­i­pate in bap­tisms and the Lord’s Sup­per.  Mem­bers of New Life are required to attend this meet­ing, but the meet­ing is open to any­one inter­ested in or cur­rently attend­ing New Life.  We hope to see you tonight at 6:30 pm!

Last week I was pleased to dis­cover the Kevin DeY­oung (pas­tor of Uni­ver­sity Reformed Church and blog­ger at The Gospel Coali­tion) is doing a seven-post series on seven major Bible pas­sages that deal with social jus­tice.  His first post high­lights Isa­iah 1.  DeY­oung notes, “Their prob­lem was one that recurs often in prophetic lit­er­a­ture: they were get­ting the details of reli­gion right but not the heart of it. Out­side of “church” the Israelites were doing evil, not good (16–17). In par­tic­u­lar, they were guilty of injus­tice toward the father­less and the widow, the basic cat­e­gories in the Bible for the help­less and vul­ner­a­ble (17).”

I encour­age you to check his blog reg­u­larly over the next sev­eral weeks for the other posts.  In light of our study of the Ser­mon on the Mount (where “only hear­ing” is reg­u­larly con­trast­ing with “hear­ing and doing”), I believe we need to:

1. Hon­estly study and reflect on the Bible’s teach­ing regard­ing areas that are uncom­fort­able to Amer­i­cans, includ­ing finan­cial stew­ard­ship, jus­tice for the oppressed, the orphan, the widow, and the for­eigner, to name a few.

2. Hon­estly eval­u­ate our lives to see whether or not they match the Bible’s teach­ing and our own profession.

3. Change our prac­tices  (by God’s grace) and hold one another account­able to bib­li­cal liv­ing – just as we would hold each other account­able to bib­li­cal theology.

This evening we will con­clude Right­eous­ness Rede­fined, our series through the Ser­mon on the Mount that began in Sep­tem­ber 2009.  Tonight’s mes­sage is enti­tled, “The Wise Builder,” and will cover Matthew 7:24–29.

Jesus will con­trast the fool­ish builder (who builds his house on the sand by only hear­ing Jesus’ words) and the wise builder (who builds his  house on the rock by hear­ing and doing Jesus’ words.

We hope that you will join us tonight at 5pm and that God will chal­lenge and change you through his Word.

Tomor­row morn­ing is going to be totally awe­some.  New Life will be staffing a water stop at the 4^th Annual Armadillo Dash Half Marathon and 5K.  This is going to be a great oppor­tu­nity for us to serve our com­mu­nity and let peo­ple know about what God is doing at New Life.

If you want to par­tic­i­pate (and I can’t imag­ine that you don’t), you’ll just need to:

1. Dress up in sweet 80s attire.

2. Meet us on Bird Pond Road off of Rock Prairie Road at 6:30 a.m. (we’ll have a table with drinks and a makeshift stage for our musi­cians that will be play­ing live 80s music).

3. Come ready to have a blast encour­ag­ing and serv­ing the half-marathon run­ners by hand­ing out drinks and pick­ing up trash around our stop.

We will have a per­son at the end of the race that will col­lect votes from the run­ners.  We are com­pet­ing for prize money that will be donated to the char­ity of our choice in the greater Bryan/College Sta­tion area.

This is going to be a great oppor­tu­nity for us to serve oth­ers and build com­mu­nity.  Whether you are a mem­ber at New Life or are plan­ning to visit soon, this would be a great place to meet oth­ers and have fun.  If you have any ques­tions, email me.  Oth­er­wise, we’ll see you bright and early tomor­row morning!