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“The sisters were heartbroken when Lazarus died. They must have felt sure that they knew what their heart’s desires were, and they must also have felt sure that they had lost them forever. But what the story of Mary of Bethany shows is that a person can feel sure about these things and still be altogether mistaken.”
Eleonore Stump, Wandering in Darkness
“From beginning to end, the Holy Scriptures testify that the predicament of fallen humanity is so serious, so grave, so irremediable from within, that nothing short of divine intervention can rectify it.”
― Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ
“Jesus wept, and in his weeping, he joined himself forever to those who mourn. He stands now throughout all time, this weeping Jesus weeping, with his arms about the weeping ones: ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.’ He stands with the mourners, for his name is God-with-us. Jesus wept.”
- Ann Weems, Psalms of Lament
“For in [Christ] the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.”
- Colossians 2:9
“He sanctified the body by being in it.”
- Athanasius, On the Incarnation
“That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering, ‘No future bliss can make up for it’ not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory.”
—C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
Due to technical difficulties there is no audio recording of the sermon this week.
The King of Love my Shepherd is,
Whose goodness faileth never;
I nothing lack if I am His
And He is mine forever.
Where streams of living water flow
My ransomed soul He leadeth,
And, where the verdant pastures grow,
With food celestial feedeth.
Perverse and foolish, oft I strayed,
But yet in love He sought me;
And on His shoulder gently laid,
And home, rejoicing brought me.
In death’s dark vale, I fear no ill
With Thee, dear Lord, beside me;
Thy rod and staff my comfort still,
Thy cross before to guide me.
Thou spread’st a table in my sight;
Thine unction grace bestoweth;
And O what transport of delight
From Thy pure chalice floweth.
And so through all the length of days,
Thy goodness faileth never;
Good Shepherd, may I sing Thy praise
Within Thy house forever.
—The King of Love My Shepherd Is, Henry Baker
“The action of Jesus in giving his life is an act both of complete freedom and of filial obedience. He is not the passive victim of other men’s purposes. … Jesus in going this way offers his life to the Father in whose will is his joy, confident that what he has so offered cannot be lost but will be received back. This path of freely willed and obedient surrender to the Father is the way which Jesus is, and along which he leads his people.”
— Lesslie Newbigin
“Thy mercy my God is the theme of my song; the joy of my heart and the boast of my tongue. Thy Free Grace alone from the first to the last, hath won my affections and bound my soul fast.”
—John Stocker, 1776
“Listening… means real listening, intense listening, listening which hurts. It means attentive straining after what is said, giving ourselves wholly to the task of attention to Jesus. Why? Because he is God’s Word, he is what God says to us. …It is a way–the way–of being human. Listening means obedience… the lifelong task of giving my consent to the shape which God has for my life. Obedience is letting God put me in the place where I can be the sort of person I am made by God to be. I come to see what kind of person this is when I stop trying to be in charge of myself, and instead acknowledge that God is my Lord, that I can only be myself if I walk in his ways. So listening to Jesus is always a practical matter…”
—John Webster
“So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
— 1 Corinthians 13:13 (ESV)