A God who can empathize

Ross King is coming out with a new album, We Know How This Thing Ends. His first single from the album came out this week, called Good Company.



The song is about how if you are sad, broken hearted, upset, that you are not alone but in good company with Jesus who also was sad (when Lazarus died), broken hearted (when in the garden he knew his death was imminent), and upset (when he throw out the money changes from the temple). 

No doubt Ross was thinking of Hebrews 4:14-16 when he was writing the song.

Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

In the passage about Lazarus, Jesus is a close friend of Lazarus and his two sisters Mary and Martha. Now people had been telling Jesus that Lazarus was sick and dying, but he said that Lazarus wouldn't die. Then Lazarus did die. Jesus and his disciples went to Bethany. When they arrive, 4 days after Lazarus was buried, Martha greets them, sad but slightly hopeful. Jesus asks her if she believes that Lazarus will rise again. She says yes, in the resurrection of the dead. Jesus says that he is the Resurrection and the Life. They then go see Mary. Mary runs out saying that if only Jesus had been here, Lazarus wouldn't have died. Jesus sees her crying and those who came to console them. The scripture then says "Jesus wept." Jesus then orders the stone moved and calls Lazarus out of the grave.

The Jesus wept line has been of interest, either because there is a lot packed in those two words, or because it is only 2 words and is easy to memorize as your favorite verse. 

Googling what that verse might mean comes back with a lot of possibilities. Most focus on Jesus being sad at the cost of sin, or maybe he just cried because everyone else was crying, or he was thinking about his own impending death. I remember learning in a Bible study that Jesus wept because of the unbelief of those around him. But I think Ross has a great point in this song. Jesus wept because he was sad. 

Jesus knew how this thing was going to end. He had been hinting at it to the disciples. They didn't understand at all, but Jesus did. He knew he would raise Lazarus from the dead. He knew that Lazarus would be with Him throughout all eternity. But yet when Jesus came to where the body of Lazarus laid, he wept. He wept like one would expect when he comes to where his good friend has died.

May Jesus wept because he was sad. Maybe the easy answer is the correct answer. Jesus was fully human, why would we not expect him to be said when his good friend dies?

Johnny Cash performed a song called Man Who Couldn't Cry. It talks about a man who no matter what happened, he showed no emotion. My wife calls me this. I don't think I have ever cried in my adult life. I don't know the reason. But maybe seeing that Jesus cried is saying that it is OK to cry. If an infinite God cried when a good friend died, maybe even a man should cry. 

Jesus can empathize with those who do, even if I can't.

Within the Two Binders: Prayer of Thanksgiving for Easter

I found this short prayer than appears to be a prayer of thanksgiving for Easter.

We thank Thee for the beauty of this day, for the glorious message that all nature proclaims; the Easter lilies with their waxen throats eloquently singing the good news; the birds so early this morning, impatient to begin their songs; every flowering tree, shrub, and flaming bush, a living proclamation from Thee; O Open our heats that we may hear it too! Lead us we pray from the grave that is empty, into the garden of the Resurrection where we may meet our risen Lord. May we never again live as if Thou were dead! In Thy presence restore our faith, our hope, our joy. Grant to our spirits refreshment, rest, and peace. Maintain within our hearts, an unruffled calm, and unbroken serenity that no storms of life shall ever be able to take from us.

 From this moment, O living Christ, we ask Thee to go with us wherever we go; be our Companion in all that we do. And for this greatest gift of all gifts, we offer Thee our sacrifices of thanksgiving.

 

Within the Two Binders: God in History

Continuing through the binders, this 3 page introduction was found within a lesson on Joseph, son of Jacob.

Several years ago there was a cartoonist, who produced a Pulitzer prize winning cartoon. This cartoon showed an old man with a broom in one hand and a duster in the other. He was approaching an unoccupied pulpit, a closed Bible, and an altar, from which one could see cobwebs running in every direction. The caption under this cartoon read, "TIME TO DUST IT OFF." 

Today the average man in the street needs to dust of his ideas concerning history. our lesson this morning is entitled, "God in History." There are too many of us who do not believe that God is concerned with history, or that he can, or will have anything to do with it. It doesn't make very good sense, to go around preaching and teaching that God is concerned with the individual, but that he isn not interested in the great political and social currents of our world. If God is interested in me as an individual, I can't help but believe that he also must be interested in the current military, political and economic world. Further, I don't believe that he is powerless to do anything about it. But we who are followed of the lowly Nazarene, believe that God can effectively control the world through the voluntary co-operation of his people. To Joseph this might not have made very good sense, and he probably would not have been in full accord with this view. 

There are in the world today three different views concerning man, and God in history. There is the view point that believes man controls history and his own destiny. An illustration of this type of thinking was at one time expressed by Mr. Winston Churchill, when he heard that a group of men were unloading tonnage from a ship at a very strategic spot. He sent this message to them, "Tell them for me, that they are unloading history." Mr. Churchill is one of the great men of our time, I would not attempt to argue, or to criticize his viewpoint of history, for no other man of our time has made more history, or been involved in the making of more history than Mr. Churchill. But if you take his statement just as it stands, it could mean that it is man who "unloads" or "loads" or "stacks" or "stops" or control history. If this be true, then every person is at the mercy of some Napoleon, a Hitler, or a Mussolini, or some other little strutting dictator who crosses the stage of history. One after another of these men have had their little brief glory upon the stage, and they have left it strewn with broken hopes, ideals destroyed, and the dead and broken and twisted bodies of thousands of their fellow man. No man, not even, the best and the wisest, knows enough, or possesses enough virtue, or is destined to live long enough to be entrusted with the control of the world. 

The Italian statesman, Machiavelli, proclaimed the doctrine of economic control of history. This is the view of the Communists. Communism says that the world is in a continual conflict brought on by economic considerations. The conflict comes from that part of man's life where he is in a constant struggle to win the material things of life, such as food, clothing, and housing. Back and forth this struggle goes, until there comes a time when man will reach the "Golden Age." But the battle now is between the haves and the havenots. In this struggle the individual counts very little. It is the sweep of things, the blind force that moves on like a tidal wave sweeping everything before it. Things are the master. And so it is, that the Communist ruler can declare and he evidently believes that the nation or nations that stand in the way will be plowed under. He dogmatically, prophesies that our children will grow up under communism. It this system there is no God. 

The third view in history is that it is God controlled. That God started it, and that God will finish it, and that in between the beginning and the end, he has a hand in it. The Christian does not believe history to be sentimental or soft headed. We do not blink at defeats and tragedy. We do not believe, in fact we know it is not the be true, that day by day, in every way, that man or history is getting better and better. We accept the view, even tho we don't understand it, that often the best is in the hands of the worst. Just as Joseph suffered at the hands of his brothers, and just as Jesus, in the hands of the Roman soldiers. But we believe, that history does affirm that God can and does sometimes use that which is bad to chastise and discipline that which is less good than it might be. 

The Book of Isaiah says, "Thus saith the Lord, to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue the nations before him; I will loosen the loins of kinds, to open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut." We might ask, did God approve the cruelty and the brutality of Cyrus? The answer is no, God does not approve of the methods of Cyrus; God approves the methods of Jesus, and the methods of the two are as far apart as the north and the south pole. 

Yet, we contend, that God does use a Cyrus. Cyrus does not control God; God controls Cyrus. And he will use Cyrus, whether Cyrus wills it or not. Cyrus can do much damage; he can bring untold suffering. Much that is good and fine and noble will be at the mercy of Cyrus, but Cyrus does not control history nor does he control time. These are in the hands of a just and a merciful God. When Cyrus has been used of God, God will cast him aside. When an obedient servant has been used of God, he will be loved and cherished. 

God, not men, not blind force, is in control. The child of God lives by faith and not be sight. Without this faith, it is impossible to please God.