Deus Misereatur

{The Sermon Audio File is here  for you to listen to while reading through the notes below} ---- Worship and Suffering - 2 Corinthians 1.3-11 { As we wade into this passage, Father, show us things we easily miss, and drive home the great things we find it hard to believe. Amen } The fictitious world many Christians and many Churches seem to be living in is reflected in books and preachers from Houston, Dallas, Tulsa and Tampa. They promote the notion that if you follow their plans, repeat their “Faith-Formulas”, kneel on their little Jesus Prayer Rugs, etc., and then everything will go A-OK. And many churches act as if the dirty little secret we should never talk about is suffering, and so their worship and communal-psyche is all PolyAnna-ish, running around looking for the glad verses in the Bible and ignoring the harsh, scummy, devilish realty that muck happens and it happens to God’s people – even the most godly and most saintly. And that’s what you see here in Paul’...

Jesus, the cool-as-a-cucumber, emotionless, impervious Savior; that’s the impression most people have of him. You hear this notion float to the top in our prayers, where we inform God of our anxious frettings, and then quickly apologize for having let the nervous-cat out of the bag, thinking that God frowns on such frivolous fussing. 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 what is his emotional state? “And he took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be greatly distressed and troubled . And he said to them, "My soul is very sorrowful , even to death . Remain here and watch." And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed ( . . . ).” We read that Jesus takes along his three closest companions, and the atmosphere is charged with deep angu...