Like sounds of beautiful music, worship can renew us for God’s glory and our good by the invigorating power of God’s “reverberating” word. It is God’s story that redeems all our stories. We want to tell it again and again as best we can, clearly conveying its message, meaning, richness, claim, and call.
Michael Denham
In God’s hands, it’s better to be at the end of your rope than at the top of your game.
Michael Denham
We are approaching what we call “Stewardship Dedication” Sunday this weekend at my church. What typically happens is during the offertory, members of the congregation walk to the front of the sanctuary and place their faithful commitment cards in large cornucopia baskets placed there to receive them.
Antipicating this act of worship, last week our Childrens Ministries leaders challenged their youngest charges to create “acts of kindness” cards with drawings, sayings, or sentiments to convey what each child considered to be important things for Christians to say or do. Our staff had the privelege of previewing some of these creations that this weekend will also be placed in the stewardship baskets.
The collected insight, wisdom, and messages exhibited in these cards was striking. One in particular caught me up short. I’ll let its simple profundity speak for itself:
“Never look down on someone unless you’re helping them up.”
Wow!
Michael Denham
My mother once had a beautiful cut glass candy jar that was displayed on a decorative side shelf of a desk in our living room—in our house, the fancy room. It was a lower shelf, which meant it was directly in view of my four year old line of sight. I was of course drawn to it for any number of reasons, but primarily its contents. At that age and stage I could resist pretty much anything except temptation. That candy was just calling to me!
But the jar had a lid. The cut glass jar had a cut glass lid with a scalloped cut glass edge fitting atop the cut glass jar only one complicated way. Somehow I weaseled into the goods easily enough, but easing the cut glass lid back into its cut glass slots was simply beyond the capacity of my motor skills. Calamity struck!
All of a sudden all that candy lay on the floor amidst hundreds of glass shards that used to be a beautiful cut glass jar—my mother’s cut glass jar. I was filled with tearful terror. Only a moment later I sensed her standing right behind and above me. What would happen now? What on earth would become of me?
To my great surprise she sat down next to me on the carpet, and beckoned me onto her lap. She said,
“That glass jar was one of my favorite things.
It was a gift to me from my mother. I loved that
glass jar.”
“But I love you more.”
That’s the first time I really knew the power of forgiveness.
Michael Denham
Last week, my wife and I enjoyed a wonderful five days in Bermuda. We knew next to nothing about the place before we went. We now know only a little bit more, but we highly recommend it. Unbelievably clear, blue-green water, beautiful beaches, delicious food, and very friendly people.
We stayed on the farthest northeastern tip of the Islands, in the historic township of St. George’s, where far earlier the British first set foot on its sand and rock. You could think of St. George’s as more “out in the country.” The capital, Hamilton, is located twenty-five miles or so to the southwest in the middle of Bermuda. It’s more like “the big city.”
One day we rented electric bikes, and headed out down the picturesque main road on the south side of the Islands. It runs nearly the entire length of the country. By the time we finished our trek, we’d pedaled over forty miles. Along the way, we saw many beautiful hills, seascapes, and crystalline coves and beaches.
Walking and bike-riding probably helped us see details of things we wouldn’t have seen by car, and to get some flavor of the communities and neighborhoods we were pedaling through.
One thing we noticed (probably a natural hazard of being in ministry) was the wide variety of churches dotting the landscape: Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican, Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, Seventh Day Adventist, independent Evangelical and more. Some looked ancient and historical, monuments to perhaps earlier heady days. Others looked modern, vital, and active.
The only one we actually visited was back in St. George’s. It’s named St. Peter’s Church, and still serves as the principal Anglican congregation in town. It also has the distinction of being the oldest church in Bermuda, the oldest Anglican church outside the British Isles, and the oldest Protestant church in continuous use in the New World.
As we explored its sanctuary, we discovered on one wall a decorative wooden plaque featuring names of all the past and present rectors, and when they began their pastoral tenures. The list began in 1611 and continued to 2022.
For a 412 year old list, it wasn’t actually all that long: 34 names. For the sake of comparison, in my almost twenty-seven years now at The National Presbyterian Church, I’ve served under nine pastors.
For the sake of perspective, let’s notice that St. Peter’s Church was established
So it wasn’t very long after these historically momentous events, that this relatively small congregation in an arguably small, out of the way, “out in the country,” town on the north tip of Bermuda began its witness of word and work for the sake of Christ’s kingdom, a ministry trajectory guided strikingly by only 34 leaders in 412 years.
Except for the availability of their names to be read on that small plaque on the sanctuary wall, these leaders’ earthly lives are now opaque, even essentially lost to us, in the currents of history. Leaders come and go. We come and go. Only their and our work for the sake of the Kingdom of God endures.
A far more prominent and important plaque above the altar in St. Peter’s Church signals this fundamental reality. On it are displayed The Ten Commandments, The Lord’s Prayer, and The Apostles’ Creed: Sentinels, if you will, offering us and four centuries of worshipers there orienting and forming reminders of what C. S. Lewis astutely once said,
“Everything not eternal is eternally out of date.”
Michael Denham
Noted Presbyterian preacher Earl F. Palmer often said, “You, and everyone else you meet, are mid-story.” By this he meant each of us, our spouses, our children, our colleagues, our friends and acquaintances, people who bolster us, people who annoy us, total strangers, and even our enemies.
As to the unfolding of our lives, God is at any moment still working in us, on us, and through us. Our story is not yet complete.
We can be relieved to hear this, as it allows for mistakes, course corrections, and new trajectories. It allows for doubts, fears, and feeling lost. It also allows for repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation. God’s grace and sovereign interest are in the midst of it all.
In our church staff meeting this morning, one of our pastors shared something insightfully germane from Eugene Peterson’s Living the Message (August 27):
“God creates in ways past finding out, with energy and beauty exceeding anything we have eyes and ears for. Nothing that we encounter from birth to burial merely is. It is the marvelous result of God’s making. There is a verb behind every noun, the first verb in cosmos and scripture: create. God saves in ways past finding out, with a persistence and wisdom exceeding anything we can understand. No person we meet from the beginning we open our eyes in the morning until we shut them in sleep at night is finished.”
At the least this gives us pause toward patience both with others and ourselves and, deeper in, curiosity as to just what God is up to.
Michael Denham
One of our pastors preached a striking sermon from Ephesians 2:1-10 this past Sunday. Her insightful exegesis and exposition of that text pointed out three things: Who we were before God got hold of us, who we are now because God got hold of us, and how that work, which only God can do, changed us and is changing us so thoroughly from the inside out.
This can only best be characterized as transformation: From one reality to another, from one identity to another, from one purpose to another, and from one destiny to another.
She crystalized Paul’s own words to us by citing three structural moments in his argument: YOU WERE…BUT GOD… WE ARE. As the passage unfolds, we learn that because of the greatest of loves, out of the richness of complete grace, and in accordance with sovereign design, God moved on us and in us to bring us from death to life, and to walk us out of the dark places we couldn’t even recognize entombed us.
Our need of God is not partial, but total. Like any other dead person, we were helpless to reinvigorate and rescue ourselves. BUT GOD had other plans, and did for us the unique work of transformation—of re-creation no less dramatic and effective than breathing, into the formed nostrils of a lump of clay, life, vitality, being. But Adam’s creation did not end the story. That auspicious beginning went awry through human disobedience and sin, leading to alienation and death for all of us.
BUT GOD from the beginning planned a remedy: Through the Second Adam a recreation of all things. This transformation, by divine decree, from death to life is still working its way in us and, indeed, in all creation, until such time, in God’s time, a new heaven and earth become the new reality.
Revelation 21:5 affirms and confirms the truth that, in God’s good time, all things—and it really does mean ALL THINGS—will become new. The One who was seated on the throne said, “See I am making all things new.”He also said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true” Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a free gift from the spring of the water of life.” We bear this in mind in the face of evil in the world, through change, pain, and loss, despite weariness, loneliness, and even despair.
As the old hymn says, “Alpha and Omega, beginning and the end, God is making all things new. Springs of living water shall wash away each tear. He is making all things new.”
All Things New
Light after darkness, gain after loss,
Strength after weakness, crown after cross;
Sweet after bitter, hope after fears,
Home after wand’ring, praise after tears.
Alpha and Omega, beginning and the end, he is making all things new.
Springs of living water shall wash away each tear. He is making all things new.
Sight after myst’ry, sun after rain,
Joy after sorrow, peace after pain;
Near after distant, gleam after gloom,
Love after loneliness, life after tomb.
Frances Ridley Havergal (1836-1879) based on Revelation 21:5-6
Michael Denham
Rabbinic tradition offers the perspective that prayer is a process… one of asking God to make his will our will.
We too often get this perspective exactly backwards. In our self-centered and instantly gratifying ways, prayer becomes a process of asking God to make our will his will.
On our journey of faith, it’s the transforming power of the Holy Spirit through Christian discipleship that clarifies our perspective and sharpens our vision of what God wants to do in us and through us for his greater glory and our good.
Gracious God, we are grateful for access to you that you grant us through your Son our Savior. He is our priest, our advocate, our intercessor, our master, our teacher, our pattern, our Lord. He taught us a new way to pray, coming to you and calling on you – his Father – as our Father. In this new intimacy, we do not presume familiarity, but we find security, identity, and destiny in your warm embrace. Through Christ our Lord we pray. Amen.
I’d say that the most difficult habit to sustain in Christian living is a regular prayer life. Everything seems to get in the way, and by the end of a day, so many things have crowded and crammed themselves into my moments, that prayer becomes an afterthought. Sometimes I feel guilty about this, as if there were some arbitrary standard of involvement of which I’ve once again fallen seriously short.
More often – and I believe this is more consistent with God’s own hopes for us – I feel shortchanged for having spent too little time praying. (“Gee, I could’ve had a V-8” sort of response.) There’s something in the moments of private prayer that’s different than time spent in study, or corporate worship, or fellowship, or service.
Ideally, these elements of Christian discipleship and growth interface, coalesce, cross-pollinate and work in tandem. But there’s something about the existential moments of prayer that offer unique glimpses through the window between earth and heaven. I believe God’s designed it to be this way.
Now, there are all kinds of prayers. No one size fits all. I think of author Anne Lamott’s two favorite missiles, “Help me! Help me! Help me!” and “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” These actually may be closer to our everyday experience than we’d care to admit.
I think of Presbyterian pastor and preacher Donald Grey Barnhouse’s pre-meal graces, “Lord, we thank you for your many blessings to us each day, for this wonderful meal, particularly for the roast beef and mashed potatoes, and not quite so much for the Brussels sprouts.”
I think of Christian communicator and educator Howard Hendricks, who was deeply involved in men’s ministries over the years, telling of a riveting exchange during an early morning small group Bible Study. When it came time for prayer, each one around the circle in succession began to pray in a way that sounded a little too much like a graduate seminar in systematic theology, until it came to the new guy in the group.
After a lengthy, awkward, sweaty-collar pause, he began, haltingly, “Lord…this is Sam… I’m the one who came to know you last week…I don’t really know how to do this… I just want you to know how lost I was before last week…and how grateful I am that you found me.” Professor Hendricks said that in that thunderstruck moment, a room full of seasoned, even “professional” pray-ers, wanted to hide their fat heads under the table.
Yes, there are all kinds of prayers. But there’s a pattern for praying offered to us by our Lord himself, in Matthew 6.
Before he offers the disciples this pattern, Jesus cautions us about two things: Hypocrisy and insincerity.
Whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly, I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
What do we think Jesus is saying here? I’d suggest two things.
Prayer has an audience of one. Others may hear it. They may be moved by it. They may even enter into it. But they don’t ultimately hear it. Prayers offered to be impressive to others run the risk of not making it past the ceiling tiles.
Prayer moves from the human heart to God’s ear. It’s intelligent, but not necessarily intellectual. It’s emotional, but not necessarily ecstatic. It’s personal, yet anything but proud. At best it comes from that center point in each of us where heart, soul, mind and strength interplay and meld. It’s authentic. It’s honest. It’s direct.
I’d make a third observation based on what Jesus says next.
There’s nothing in our prayers that surprises God. What does Jesus say? “Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”
The eyes of the Lord range throughout the entire earth to strengthen those whose heart is true to him.
He who watches over Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps.
No eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived,what God has prepared for those who love him.
God is omniscient, omnipresent, sovereign, able, willing, wise, and loving. The impressive thing about being God is not needing a lot of help. He knows what we need.
There’s far more to unpack in Jesus’ model prayer than is possible in these short comments, but I do believe that in his pattern we can discern a few things that help keep all the theology in clear context.
First, there’s acknowledgment that God is God and we’re not. God is holy, and God is wholly other than us. Yet God is known to us because he’s revealed his name. God is transcendent in being, in power, and in authority. Yet, explicitly in Jesus’ prayer, God is Father and, implicitly, God is immanent and intimate to us, available in more depth and more ways than we even imagine.
Second, there’s attitude based on such acknowledgment: attitude of creature to creator, subject to sovereign, and lesser to greater, but, all the while, child to loving parent.
As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on us; he remembers our frame, that we are only dust.
What one of you does not want to give good gifts to your children?
Sometimes we just can’t get our minds wrapped around the idea of intimate relationship with God. It’s as if, when we pray, we recoil from fear that God will say, “Oh, it’s Joe, Oh, it’s Jane. Quick, Gabriel, go get the whip!”
Nothing could be farther from the truth! The attitude of Jesus’ prayer is intimate and secure.
Third, there’s adjustment. Recognizing our dependence on God is not a sign of weakness, but an indication we know where our strength truly lies.
It’s like the Dad watching his little boy trying to lift a far too heavy stone.
“Are you using all you strength, son? Are you sure that you’re using all your strength? Do you remember that my strength is also yours if you want it.”
Recognizing our sin before God and need of forgiveness doesn’t send us cowering away from a ruthless, vengeful deity. Rather, it compels us to trust God’s grace as the only way to receive the blessing of God’s holiness. Recognizing our place as forgiven children of God doesn’t drive us to haughty comparisons with others. Instead, it calls us to offer forgiveness even as we’ve freely received it.
Must all our prayers closely follow Jesus’ pattern to be legitimate petitions that reach heaven’s throne? No. But acknowledgement of our complete need before God and God’s complete provision for us brings us thirsty to the well of living waters. An attitude of child to Father assures us that we’ll receive, perhaps not all we ask for, but everything we need. Adjustments we make in the way we treat each other demonstrate our recognition of just how far God came to redeem and rescue us.
Prayer then becomes less a way to motivate or manipulate God, less a way to bang on the door of heaven, and more a process of accepting God’s gracious embrace in Christ; of acknowledging that our dependence on God isn’t partial, but total; all leading to a life of actively gracing others with the same favor we’ve freely received.
Through prayer as Jesus taught us to pray, we draw closer and closer to God, assuming a posture that the rabbis astutely recognized as fundamental: His will our own.
Michael Denham
We all know—each of us in our own way—what it is to feel alone, left behind, even abandoned or forsaken. These are emotions common to us.
Jesus also knew real human joys and sorrows. He celebrated at weddings. He wept at funerals. He grew deeply weary during his temptation in the wilderness.
He chided his disciples for falling asleep as he was despairing in the Garden of Gethsemane. So when Jesus cried out from the cross, his depth of emotion was fully human.
“Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani!”
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
This is the only one of Christ’s seven last words recorded by more than one Gospel. Both Matthew and Mark record this anguished cry of dereliction. And of all his seven words, this is the only one they mention.
Of his prayers recorded in Scripture, only in this one does Jesus not address God as “Father.” Over and over again, he taught disciples and crowds alike that, with God— the Creator of all things, the Holy One of Israel—a tender, intimate, and trusting relationship is available. Jesus taught that it is God’s preferred relationship with us: one full of awe but free from fear, not austere and aloof, not held at arms length, but one characterized by an embrace of kindness and mercy, grace and love.
So it is striking, in this most anguished and painful moment, Jesus does not call to God as “Abba” or “Father,” but as “Eloi.”
“Eloi” is the everyday Aramaic form of the generic Hebrew root for “God.” It is the least intimate, least relational of biblical names for God. Neither does Jesus cry out to God as “Adonai”—LORD—the name that reminded Israel of God’s faithfulness and covenantal loyalty.
In this supreme moment of stress and test, we might expect Jesus to call to God in his familiar fashion—as “Father”—yet he does not.
His chosen words actually quote the beginning lines of Psalm 22. By the time of his life and ministry, this psalm was embraced as a Messianic psalm, one that in cryptic but specific ways pointed to Israel’s coming Messiah. Some argue, then, that Jesus’ cry is best understood as fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy.
Yet even formal fulfillment of prophecy does not lessen the personal force of Jesus’ exclamation. Even as he fulfills prophecy of that ancient oracle, he is trusting, depending, literally hanging on the truth of God’s Word.
Yet still he cries out:
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
The layers of meaning here are rich and deep. As it was originally on the psalmist’s lips, so also with Jesus it is the cry of a righteous person suffering. Yet even in the face of the psalmist’s or the Savior’s suffering it affirms by faith that God will surely, somehow rescue and vindicate. Underneath his anguish and his sense of abandonment and aloneness, there is Jesus’ faith in God’s power, God’s character, and God’s promise.
Here, on the fulcrum of history, and at the very heart of it all is the theological crux of the matter, as cosmic forces of good and evil, sin and sacrifice, curse and blessing are being brought to terms once and for all at Calvary.
At Calvary the love of God meets the high bar of God’s holiness. At Calvary the mercy of God pierces the darkness of all human sin. At Calvary the grace of God supplies all that we lack. At Calvary the sovereign love of God the Father, the sacrificing love of God the Son, and the sustaining love of God the Holy Spirit are at work together on our behalf.
We don’t pretend to understand all that occurred in that moment on Calvary, yet we affirm the blessing of Christ’s saving work there for us, and its promise of eternal life.
St. Peter writes, “Christ himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that free from sins, we might live for righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed… Christ suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you back to God.”
Donald Grey Barnhouse, an eminent Presbyterian preacher of the last century illustrated Christ’s saving work—how Christ rescued us from the destructive and damning effects of sin—by telling the story of a farmer, who one day looked across his fields to see them ablaze, with flames racing toward his barns and house. He rushed to set a backfire in hopes of salvaging what he could. After the crisis had passed, as he walked through the smoldering rubble, he looked down and saw the charred body of a mother hen, wings outstretched. He sadly turned over her remains with the toe of his boot, only to see her chicks run out from underneath, unharmed.
The saving work of God through him came as no surprise to Jesus. Had he not told his disciples, “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.”
Yet the prospect of such work, of such a role, was daunting and grievous, even to the Son of God. Had he not prayed that his Father, if possible, might let the cup pass from him? Was it not the sheer weight of his work—both the prospects of it during his dark and torturous hours before Golgotha, and the actual passing of it in the crucifixion—was it not the sheer unprecedented, unequalled weight of his unique work that propelled him to cry
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
His cry recognizes actual judicial separation from God the Father, as God the Son becomes the atoning sacrifice for human sin. But it also affirms, in the face of dire distress, a genuine, continuing, eternal relationship. The NT book of Hebrews says that Jesus, “…for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame…”
It would be difficult not to imagine, even as he cried out prophetic and personal words of anguish from the Psalms, that even deeper within Jesus re-echoed the Father’s words at his baptism, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
Commenting on the drama unfolding at Calvary, the 19th century Scottish writer George MacDonald says,
Jesus could not see, could not feel God near, and yet it is “My God”that he cries. Thus the will of Jesus, in the very moment when his faith seems about to yield is finally triumphant. It has no feeling now to support it, no vision to absorb it. It stands naked in his soul and tortured…Pure and simple—and surrounded by fire—it declares for God.
May we find even the smallest portion of such faith—according to Jesus, all we really need—as during Holy Week and beyond we meditate on Christ’s cross, and in turn as we accept his invitation to take up our own and follow him.
Michael Denham
When Jesus had received the wine, he said, “It is finished.” Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. John 19:30
Today is Good Friday, both the nadir and zenith of events in our Lord’s passion. It is beyond our mortal categories and capacities to adequately, much less fully, comprehend all that happened on that Jerusalem hill “without a city wall.” Yet we notice that Jesus’ sixth “word” from the cross is a curious thing: “It is finished.”
One might well have expected him to say, “I am finished.” At that point of complete exhaustion, of excruciating pain, of apparent failure and humiliation, no one has ever had more reason to cry out, “Enough! I’m spent! I’m undone! I’m finished!”
But at that focal point of history, the Son of God and Savior of the world focused not on his mortal predicament, but on his immortal purpose, the work to which he had been called, the work he had been sent to do, the work culminating on that fulcrum of salvation we call Calvary. Held in the balance there, offered in the exchange there, was his life for ours.
The larger Biblical witness emphasizes that Jesus had a real sense of his identity. In whatever way was necessary, he knew who he was.
As a 12 year old boy, he astonished learned religious leaders in the Temple with his wisdom and depth of insight, and he admonished Mary and Joseph who had anxiously hurried back to Jerusalem after they had discovered he was missing:
“Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49)
As a young man in his hometown synagogue in Nazareth, he flatly declared that Old Testament prophecy pointed directly at him, as he read to them from Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Everyone knew what he was saying. Their eyes were fixed on him, as he sat down and said, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:16-21)
When an outcast Samaritan woman at a well bantered with him about religion, and said, “I know that Messiah is coming. When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us,” Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one speaking to you.” (John 4:25-26)
When his disciples said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied,” Jesus responded, “Have I been with you all this time, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” (John 14:8-9)
Before the Jewish Sanhedrin the night before his crucifixion, when the high priest demanded an answer, “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?” Jesus said, “I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power and coming with the clouds of heaven.” (Mark 14:61-62)
The Biblical witness also emphasizes that Jesus had a real sense of his calling. In whatever way was necessary, he knew what he had been sent to do.
As he taught his disciples, he said, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep… For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.” (John 10:11-18)
While he was for the last time on his way to Jerusalem, he drew his disciples aside and said, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified; and on the third day he will be raised.” (Matthew 20:17-18)
And in prayer for his disciples before his betrayal, Jesus said, Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you… I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.” (John 17: 1-5)
It is with all this sense of identity, calling, authority, and destiny, amidst the agony of Golgotha, that Jesus cries out “Tetelestai” – “It is finished.”
Christ’s saving, redeeming, justifying, reconciling, sacrificial work of love was accomplished. In that moment the grace and mercy and love of God was dealing with the holiness, righteousness and sovereign justice of God on our behalf.
God the Father’s strong arm of forbearance, like a great dam which had contained and restrained the force of all human sin, lifted, and the weight of that sin came upon God the Son, who alone was worthy and able to suffer its effect.
This is the work that Jesus had been sent to do. This is the work that Jesus alone could do. This is the work of which the New Testament book of Hebrews speaks: When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.
None of us can know all that occurred in that work. None of us can know all that transpired in that historical moment within the eternal Holy Trinity. What we can know is what happened for us in the process. We are forgiven. We are reconciled to God. We are made children of God. We receive abundant and eternal life.
Christ’s saving work for us is done. It is finished.
There is a green hill far away, without a city wall,
And there our Lord was crucified; he drank the bitter gall.
We may not know, we cannot tell what pains he had to bear,
But we believe it was for us he hung and suffered there.
He died that we might be forgiv’n, he died to make us free,
Forever free from sin and guilt to live eternally.
How dearly, dearly has he loved! How can we e’er repay?
Our very lives are far too small to match the price he paid on that green hill far away.
Cecil Alexander
Michael Denham
My church is firmly part of Reformation heritage and Reformed tradition. This partly means that our worship is architecturally and theologically oriented toward coming into God’s presence, hearing what God has to say, and responding to God in gratitude, witness, and service.
Worship components within this framework can vary to one degree or another, but I am always blessed by the weekly presence of two bedrock elements: Confession and Affirmation. Corporate confession offers all and each of us concrete opportunity to tell the truth about ourselves, and to name with our lips what God already knows is in our hearts. Corporate affirmation orients us around what together we believe, and how that shapes who we truly are.
We most often articulate our Christian tenets of faith through use of historical or universal statements such as the Apostles’ Creed or Nicene Creed. Regular use of these texts grounds and includes us in what most of the Church has affirmed for the longest time.
Occasionally we use statements more particularly tailored to a worship service or season at hand, for example, use of portions of a psalm, words of our Lord himself such as The Beatitiudes, or excisions from other creeds such as the Heidelberg Cathechism:
Question One: What is your only comfort in life and in death?
Answer: That I am not my own, but belong body and soul, both in life and in death, to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from all the power of the devil. He also preserves me in such a way that without the will of my heavenly Father not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, all things must work together for my salvation. Therefore, by his Holy Spirit he also assures me of eternal life and makes me heartily willing and ready from now on to live for him.
During the Advent season my congregation sometimes uses a statement of faith written far more recently. It can be adopted as an “Advent” or “Christmas” Affirmation during this holy season of contemplation and celebration.
We believe in one God, whose almighty word brought forth the universe,
who speaks to us by his Spirit through what he has created
and through what has been written for us in Holy Scripture.
We believe that at just the right moment in time,
God’s Word became flesh in the life of Jesus of Nazareth,
who was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit,
was born of the Virgin Mary, was nurtured and matured in Joseph’s
household, and who came to Israel and all the world to reveal the
kingdom of God is at hand.
We believe that this glorious good news heralded by angels points not only to
a baby in a manger in Bethlehem, but also to the cross of Calvary, and to
the empty tomb. There the angel’s message, “He is risen!” heralded the
glorious good news of Christ’s resurrection.
We remember that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, and to
show us the very charcter of God.
We recognize that he comes each day to met us in our need, and to offer
abundant life.
We rejoice in the knowledge that he will one day return in glory to rule in
righteousness, to renew all things, and to claim us as God’s own.
Michael Denham
Reverberating Word 