Christ's Passion... for you

For the past 4 months I've been reading Tim Keller's King's Cross. At the rate I'm going I read two pages per day. This has nothing to do with the quality of the book or it being able to keep my attention. My less than speedy reading is chalked up to being busy and lack of time management. Ever time I pick the book up I reel off 10-20 pages.

The cool part of taking this long to read the book is that it seems I've read certain parts at just the right time. At the exact moment that I need to hear a certain truth, this book has delivered. It's no replacement of the Bible, but a good supplement. Check it out.

So today I read a 30-40 page block that walks through Mark's version of the crucifixion. Keller does a fantastic job of stepping through the scripture step-by-step, and he adds commentary that brings so much color and context to the story (not that it needs it).

He starts by talking about the garden of Gethsemane and Jesus' time there. This is where Jesus first feels a glimpse of the separation from the Father  - the same separation that He will feel in full force the following day. Jesus prays, "If it's your will, take this cup from me". Keller adds that the metaphor of cup is historically referred to as God's wrath in the Old Testament. Jesus is starting to feel God's wrath of all mankind in the garden. 

Jesus is putting himself through this excruciating pain for us. In order to bring reconciliation between us and the Father. Keller also refers to how painful this must have felt to Jesus. Think of the most important relationship in your life - maybe a spouse, parent, child, or lifelong friend. Now think about walking around the corner to see this person totally mutilated. Immediate separation. Now think about how Jesus must have felt - His relationship with the father goes back to eternity. He chose to bear our cross and endure our sentence of separation. He did this for you...

There are a lot of other awesome details that Keller highlights and expounds on. I'll jump to the crucifixion to save time, and to hopefully encourage you to read the book...

Fast forward to Jesus on the Cross.

Mark writes that complete darkness fell from the 6th to the 9th hour of the day while Jesus was on the Cross. This is amazing for two reasons. One - complete darkness. He's not talking about a brief eclipse or a dark night. We're talking total darkness. One of the only other times complete darkness is mentioned in scripture is when the Israelites are in Egypt and the plague of darkness occurs. Two - It's believed that this 3 hour period (from noon to 3 PM) is the time of Jesus' full separation from the Father. For three hours He's shouldering the sin of mankind. He steps in to take the punishment that we deserve, only our punishment would last eternity. Imagine the grief and sorrow Jesus would feel if He experienced all of ONE man's lifetime burdens over a three hour period. Now multiply that by all of mankind. That's heavy.

The last amazing detail I'll share is in regards to the Roman Centurion who is overseeing Christ's crucifixion. After Jesus screams 'My God, why have you forsaken me' and breaths his final breath, the Centurion states 'Clearly He is the Son of God'. At face value this isn't all to crazy. But what we don't hear in the scripture is that the Centurion is the first person, other than Jesus, to give Jesus a title of deity. The disciples who lived with Jesus would call Him the Christ, or Messiah. Jewish belief didn't necessarily give the Messiah a deity connotation. Pretty cool huh? Furthermore, think about who the Centurion was. He's a man who has seen countless deaths, and been the facilitator of all of them. He knows death and is familiar with how people die. He's probably a very hard-hearted man who at this point isn't affected by death. He's also Roman, and would only dare give a deity title to Caesar. 

All that being said, from the short time he knew Jesus and experienced His death, he felt he was in the presence of God. And had the guts to call it out.

That's amazing to me. But not nearly as amazing that Jesus went through all of this pain and torture with a stiff lip. For me. To bail me out of a crime I could in no way get out of. Talk about feeling the love. 

This gave me so much peace and rest today. I think I've repeated the above 3 times tonight to other interns and staff. This refreshing perspective has come at a perfect time too. With distractions and frustrations looming, I needed to hear how Jesus loves me. 

And He loves you too.

Bible Reading for Dummies (that's me)

If you're anything like me you read the bible either as preparation for a specific bible study or you use the 'drop and flop' method. Drop and flop is a phenomenon where you read what you first flip to (a very technical and advanced concept).

Drop and flop is great because it can spawn sentences such as 'God pointed me to this scripture today'. It's also great because it's an incredibly easy and non-committal method of reading the bible. BUT -  I think it's only suited for certain people, and I've recently come to find out that I'm not in this category.

I suffer from what some call terrible reading comprehension. To make matters even worse my lack of ability to retain words is most magnified when reading scripture. All this said I probably should have attended the speed reading class my mom signed me up for in high school. Turns out I was way more interested in going to the beach and wakeboarding than sitting in a classroom learning about 'reading in blocks'.

A few months ago we talked about how to read scripture in bible study. At first I was a little taken aback by this topic. Why would a group of people who work for a Christian ministry need to learn how to read the bible? It's like mandatory defensive driving classes for NASCAR drivers. Turns out our discussion that night would drastically change the way I read the bible.

The first discipline we discussed was taking notes while studying God's word. I've found that even if I don't go back and look at my notes, the act of writing down my thoughts and certain verses helped the concepts stick.

Secondly, we talked about doing historical research on the particular book we were studying. I think this was the biggest help for me, as it adds so much more context and relevancy when actually reading the scripture.

Some other tips were to ask/answer the questions 'What was the author trying to convey in this passage?' and 'What does this passage mean specifically to me?'. Again, writing down the responses/answers.

I've also started to answer the following questions when reading a book of the Bible (this may also cover the first principle)...

Who wrote the book?
Where was it written?
Who was it written to?
When was it written?
What was going on historically in the geographic proximity of the story?
Why was the book written?

The first book I tried this out on was Galatians. I think Galatians is a great book to use this for, as it has so much background and storyline that we don't really get from solely reading the scriptures (my opinion).

If drop and flop works great for you - that's awesome. However, you should probably go to the beach and do some wakeboarding to make up for the lost time you spent in speed reading class. But if you find yourself trying to remember what the heck you just read - maybe give the above a shot. It might help.

Thank you Jesus for the Cross. I need to meet You there daily.