Deus Misereatur

(I presented this at our Good Friday Service at Heritage Presbyterian Church on 19 April 2019. The audio file is here ) Suffering Savior Mark 14.32-50 Jesus, the cool-as-a-cucumber, emotionless, impervious Savior; that’s the sense many people have of him. But look at these verses. Here is Jesus, “ the eternal Son of God,” who “became man, and so was, and continueth to be, God and man in two distinct natures, and one person, forever ” (Westminster Shorter Catechism 21) in the Garden of Gethsemene, and he is “ … greatly distressed and troubled ... very sorrowful , even to death ” and so forth. As we delve into this more fully, we will see that our Lord suffered psychologically, somatically, spiritually, and socially.   “ Greatly distressed and troubled ” (33) – The two Greek words used here are intense. Max Zerwick, S.J., translates them this way, “ he was seized by horror and distress ” (“A Grammatical Analysis of the Greek New Testament,” 5 th ed., p.156). This ...

(The hymn used here is "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing" in the Trinity Hymnal, re. ed., 457) Come, thou fount of ev'ry blessing, tune my heart to sing thy grace; streams of mercy, never ceasing, call for songs of loudest praise. Teach me some melodious sonnet, sung by flaming tongues above; praise the mount! I'm fixed upon it, mount of God's unchanging love. We offer our lives to you, O Fount of every Blessing; and we offer all of our engagements and employments to you! We ask you to orchestrate, fund and populate all of our grateful work, including our ESL classes and relationships, Sunday School, VBS, mission trip to Anadarko, our deacons in their deaconing and elders in their eldering. We also ask you to enrich all of our generosity and giving of time and resources to Infant Crisis Center, and other service organizations. O Lord, hear our prayer.     Here I raise my Ebenezer; hither by thy help I'm come; and I hope, by thy good pleasure, s...

(This congregational/pastoral prayer is flowing from Psalm 63) O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. So I will bless you as long as I live; in your name I will lift up my hands . Father, all that we are about – in our family worship, personal devotions, Sunday School classes, Worship assemblies, Care Groups, our involvement in works of mercy, mission trips, VBS, and so forth – yes, all that we are about flows from our craving to know you and be nearer to you, from our enraptured amazement at your gracious goodness to us. Draw us to you – this whole congregation, along with your Church worldwide and Northwest Church of Christ, Oakrest Church of Christ, Penn South Church of Christ and Putnam City Church of Christ. Slake our th...