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First Thoughts Blog

Category Archives: Lent

Day 15

Posted on: March 3, 2024
by: Gerrit Dawson, Senior Pastor

WEEK 3
FROM PALM SUNDAY THROUGH GETHSEMANE

Caravaggio, The Taking of Christ. 1602, National Gallery of Ireland.

More than a third of each gospel concentrates on the last week of Jesus’ life. His faithful yet uncompromising ministry leads to his final clashes with the religious and political authorities. At the beginning of the week, a multitude hails Jesus as a king when he rides on a donkey into Jerusalem. But immediately and literally, he upends the business of the temple again. He continues to confront hypocrisy until the leaders take action against him. Day by day, the pressure mounts against Jesus to turn aside from his mission. He knows the suffering that is coming, but he pushes forward in obedience to his Father. 
 
We will see this week how some of the psalms would have given Jesus lyrics for the emotions he felt amid betrayal, denial and rejection. The psalms which press from trial to victory would have offered him the narrative of God’s faithfulness to see him through. And as he prepared his disciples for his departure, a psalm would give him words for turning the Passover into the Eucharist.
 
In Caravaggio’s vivid painting of Judas betraying Jesus with a kiss, we feel the sorrowful resignation of our Lord. Psalms 41 and 55 seem lived out on Jesus’ face. His own familiar friend, a man he had trusted for three years, now brought the soldiers to arrest him. Jesus clasps his hands together, offering no resistance, only prayer for the companion who has sold him out. Only such psalms of sorrow for could give solace to Christ in the sick, lonely feeling of betrayal. 
 
DAY 15  SUNDAY
Palm Sunday: Blessed Is He Who Comes
 
Imagine standing with Jesus, right next to him, in prayer to his Father. Read this passage of praise aloud. As you do so, consider that you are praying along with Jesus, your two voices becoming one as you bless God.  
 
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
   and all that is within me,
   bless his holy name!
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
   and forget not all his benefits,
who forgives all your iniquity
   who heals all your diseases, 
who redeems your life from the pit,
   who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
who satisfies you with good
   so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. (Psalm 103:1-5)
 
Psalm 118:19-29
 
Open to me the gates of righteousness,
   that I may enter through them
   and give thanks to the LORD.
This is the gate of the LORD;
   the righteous shall enter through it.
I thank you that you have answered me
   and have become my salvation.
The stone that the builders rejected
   has become the cornerstone.
This is the LORD’s doing;
   it is marvelous in our eyes.
This is the day that the LORD has made;
   let us rejoice and be glad in it.
 
Save us [Hosanna] we pray, O LORD!
   O LORD, we pray, give us success!
 
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD!
   We bless you from the house of the LORD.
The LORD is God,
   and he has made his light to shine upon us.
Bind the festal sacrifice with cords,
   up to the horns of the altar!
 
You are my God, and I will give thanks to you;
   you are my God; I will extol you.
Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;
   for his steadfast love endures forever!
 
What Is This Psalm About?   
 
This hearty song celebrates the LORD’s deliverance of his people from their enemies. With God’s mighty help, the king and his people have prevailed in battle, so the worship leader calls the people to come to the temple to offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving. Since the specific historical event that inspired this psalm is not given, it is useful for many commemorative situations. However, one instigating incident might have taken place in the days of King Jehosophat after a miraculous victory over an overwhelming invader. The warriors returned with the king at their head “to Jerusalem with joy. . . . 
They came to Jerusalem with harps and lyres and trumpets to the house of the LORD” (2 Chronicles 20:27-28). 
 
Another historical prompt could have been the celebration when, following the Israelite’s seventy years of exile in Babylon, the temple reconstruction was complete. We read, “And all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid.” The words recorded for the praises, accompanied by trumpets and cymbals, are the same as the opening of this psalm: “And they sang . . . giving thanks to the LORD, ‘For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever toward Israel’” (Ezra 3:10-11). 
 
As the Psalter took its more permanent form, Psalms 113-118 became known as the Hallel or Praise Psalms, and they were sung at all the great national festivals in Jerusalem. Thus, the section of Psalm 118 we pray with Jesus today was always in the hearts and on the lips of the people.
 
What Might This Psalm Have Meant to Jesus?
 
A great crowd gathers as Jesus enters Jerusalem on the first day of Passover week. Although he rides on a young donkey, the people hail him as they would a king. They wave palms as a symbol of both victory and peace (John 12:13). They throw their cloaks on the road the way we would roll out a red carpet for a celebrity (Mark 11:8). All four gospels record the people shouting out lines from Psalm 118, “Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD! 
 
Mark clues his readers into how the people understood this acclamation, “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!” (Mark 11:10). The people were waiting for an heir of David to take the throne. This Messiah would, according to God’s eternal promise, drive away oppressors and restore Israel to glory. This direct rule of the LORD on earth would usher in a great day of salvation. On Palm Sunday, the people hail Jesus as the Christ. Jesus does not reject their praises. He even tells the Pharisees, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out” (Luke 19:40). This is a significant moment. The King returns to his city and makes his way to the temple of the High King to offer a sacrifice 
of thanksgiving. 
 
Later in the week, Jesus quotes from Psalm 118 as he directs a convicting parable toward the chief priests and Pharisees. He asks, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?” (Matthew 21:42). Jesus understands himself to be the foundation of a new Israel, indeed a new humanity. He also knows that the religious leaders cannot tolerate him. Fossilized by their rigid adherence to religious traditions and interpretations, they refuse to see that the LORD has delivered his salvation in an unexpected way. But Jesus never retreats from being who he is, the Son of God incarnate. He is the marvelous thing God is doing in their midst. 
 
In just a few months, Peter will use this same verse to preach the meaning of Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension: “This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else” (Acts 4:11, 12). 
 
Palm Sunday is the brief moment when the people acclaim their true Messiah. We know that all too soon they will turn “Hosanna!” into “Crucify!” Jesus knows that too. So he finds in Psalm 118 a piece of the sacred script for his final week. He must be hailed. And he must be rejected. It’s all part of a plan wherein the king himself becomes the sacrifice taken to the altar of the LORD so that the new humanity in Christ might arise.
 
Praying with Jesus
 
What a day you have made! 
A day of rejoicing and rejecting,
A day of offering and return,
A day of deliverance and judgment.
 
I want to be part of the festive parade.
Lord Jesus, I want to hail you as the king,
To build my life on your foundation.
I want to see you do marvelous things
In the world, in the people I know, in me.
I long to go with you through the gates of righteousness,
Permitted to pass only because I am with you, in you,
All the way to the presence of the Father,
To the communion and bounty of his house.
 
I pray for you as you ride into Jerusalem,
To be hailed, and then to be crucified.
I send my love, my cheers, my hopes
That you can stay steady
And see this through to the end.
 
What a day you have made!
What a day you will make when you return.
 
 

 

Posted in: Lent

Day 14

Posted on: March 2, 2024
by: Gerrit Dawson, Senior Pastor
DAY 14  SATURDAY
Ever-Present Enemies
 
Imagine standing with Jesus, right next to him, in prayer to his Father. Read this passage of praise aloud. As you do so, consider that you are praying along with Jesus, your two voices becoming one as you bless God.  
 
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
   and all that is within me,
   bless his holy name!
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
   and forget not all his benefits,
who forgives all your iniquity
   who heals all your diseases, 
who redeems your life from the pit,
   who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
who satisfies you with good
   so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. (Psalm 103:1-5)
 
Psalm 27:1-3, 11-14
 
The LORD is my light and my salvation;
   whom shall I fear?
The LORD is the stronghold of my life;
   of whom shall I be afraid?
 
When evildoers assail me
   to eat up my flesh,
my adversaries and foes,
   it is they who stumble and fall.
 
Though an army encamp against me,
   my heart shall not fear;
though war arise against me,
   yet I will be confident. . . . 
 
Teach me your way, O LORD,
   and lead me on a level path 
   because of my enemies.
Give me not up to the will of my adversaries;
   for false witnesses have risen against me,
   and they breathe out violence.
 
I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the LORD
   in the land of the living!
Wait for the LORD;
   be strong, and let your heart take courage;
   wait for the LORD!
 
What Is This Psalm About? 
  
We looked at part of Psalm 27 on Day 2. We noted how David, pressed on all sides by vigorous enemies, sought refuge in the LORD’s strength. The conflicts he faced drove him to focus on what matters most—to seek the deepest source of peace, the LORD’s steadfast presence. Giving voice to the reality of fierce opposition and the fear it creates led David to the strength of trust in God’s ultimate plan and control. Today we will look more closely at how David’s prayer as he faces his adversaries might have been a vital encouragement to Jesus.
 
What Might This Psalm Have Meant to Jesus?
 
Jesus brings splendid light into our human darkness. Sadly, as we saw yesterday, many prefer to stay in the dark. As Jesus continues in his ministry, he encounters even stiffer resistance. People become downright hostile. Undoubtedly Jesus finds comfort in David’s prayers concerning enemies and feels companionship with one who endured false accusations and threats of violence as he faces similar antagonism.
 
Mark situates the hostility early in Jesus’ ministry and presents a series of several contentious encounters beginning in Mark 2 when Jesus heals the paralytic man who is dropped by his friends through a hole in the ceiling into Jesus’ presence. Before Jesus heals the man, he declares, “Your sins are forgiven.” This provokes the Scripture scribes to exclaim, “He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (Mark 2:5-7).  
 
Similar confrontations follow in quick succession. The Pharisees question his eating with Levi and his fellow sinners (Mark 2:16). They accuse him of breaking the fourth commandment when the disciples pluck and eat grain on the Sabbath (Mark 2:24). Later, they watch him carefully as he enters the synagogue to see if he restores a man’s withered hand. After merciful Jesus does indeed heal the afflicted man, Mark recounts, “The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him” (Mark 3:6). From that moment, they continually seek to trap Jesus with questions that have no clear answers. They look for ways to disgrace him before the people. They gather “evidence” to seize him. 
 
Even Jesus’ family, in love and concern, sets up against him. When he returns home after calling his disciples and great crowds gather, we read, “And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, ‘He is out of his mind’” (Mark 3:21). 
 
Throughout his three years of ministry, antagonism assails Jesus. His path runs along a knife edge. If he receives the acclaim of the people too openly, they will thrust him into a political role. If he relies on their praise, which is always fickle, he can fall into the trap of egoism. If he withdraws too often, he fails in his mission to bring the Father’s love to the lost sheep. He must also manage his anger against the religious leaders’ failure to see what God is doing. Mark writes, “He looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart” (Mark 3:5). With just a few more sharp words or a slight display of power, Jesus could easily move from countering his opposers to destroying them.
 
Jesus knows that these people are not the real enemy. In the wilderness, Jesus has already faced down the one he calls “the ruler of this world” (John 14:30). He knows what Paul would one day express, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12). Yet the evil one works through real people to do real harm, and increasingly people are taking take up the Great Accuser’s cause of opposing Jesus.
 
In the face of all this antagonism and pressure, Psalm 27 offers Jesus steady compassion and empathy because David puts into words the feeling of distress that comes from knowing that others want to consume you with malice. For even though Jesus is sure of his mission and its outcome, he still feels the hurt and burden of knowing that every minute someone plots his demise. 
 
The psalm also gives voice to Jesus’ concern that he doesn’t step to the left or the right as he forges through the days of ministry. Jesus prays with David, “Lead me on a level path because of my enemies.” We hear how this psalm resonates in the words Jesus teaches all his disciples to pray continually, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”  
 
Yet, Jesus finds the courage to wait upon his Father, trusting that he will be able to continue his ministry until the dire hour planned from the beginning. As he prepares to face the fury of his final week, how comforting would be the hope David penned, “I believe that I shall see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.”
 
Praying with Jesus
 
I have offered such little resistance to temptation,
I have turned such a blind eye to the strategies of evil,
I have floated in such a bubble of just going along,
That I scarcely realize what you went through, Jesus.
I don’t like even one person to be mad at me.
You faced virulent opposition 
From those with God’s authority,
Who wielded Scripture against you
And called your mercy a menace.
How did you take it? 
What courage and trust and endurance!
 
Oh Jesus, my champion,
My savior who blazed a path of faithfulness
Through the tangle of temptations
And thorny, tripping branches of evil,
I pray this psalm with you now.
 
Only with you, sheltering in you,
Can I be confident when war rises against me
In any of its many forms of conflict.
 
Only with you, can I keep from falling,
To walk in faith and hope and love
Through this world to the land of the living.
 
 

 

Posted in: Lent

Day 13

Posted on: March 1, 2024
by: Gerrit Dawson, Senior Pastor
DAY 13  FRIDAY
Do Not Harden Your Hearts
 
Imagine standing with Jesus, right next to him, in prayer to his Father. Read this passage of praise aloud. As you do so, consider that you are praying along with Jesus, your two voices becoming one as you bless God.  
 
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
   and all that is within me,
   bless his holy name!
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
   and forget not all his benefits,
who forgives all your iniquity
   who heals all your diseases, 
who redeems your life from the pit,
   who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
who satisfies you with good
   so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. (Psalm 103:1-5)
 
Psalm 95 
 
Oh come, let us sing to the LORD;
   let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
   let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!
For the LORD is a great God,
   and a great King above all gods.
In his hand are the depths of the earth;
   the heights of the mountains are his also.
The sea is his, for he made it,
   and his hands formed the dry land.
 
Oh come, let us worship and bow down;
   let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker!
For he is our God,
   and we are the people of his pasture,
   and the sheep of his hand.
Today, if you hear his voice,
   do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah,
   as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,
when your fathers put me to the test
   and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.
For forty years I loathed that generation
   and said, “They are a people who go astray in their heart,
   and they have not known my ways.”
Therefore I swore in my wrath,
   “They shall not enter my rest.”
 
What Is This Psalm About?   
 
Psalm 95 is one of several great high praises we encounter in psalms numbered in the nineties. These hymns are ideal for the festival worship of a full congregation with many instruments. This psalm calls for a “joyful noise” with hearty songs of thanks to the LORD our God because he is worthy! He is not a little god of one feature of creation like the sun or the river or the harvest. The LORD is the King above all so-called gods. In fact, the Creator is so huge that even the heights and depths of the wide earth fit in his palm. His hands cup around the very ocean and keep the land safe from the waters of chaos. What’s more, the great God is our God. We are his particular people to whom he has bound himself in everlasting covenant love. So we come to worship, to kneel, to bow down, to acknowledge with full and joyful hearts our reply of trust and loyalty.
 
Like a good worship service, however, Psalm 95 takes a turn from a call to praise to a warning that our faithful response is not optional. The psalm warns us not to harden our hearts. For the LORD’s people have a history of turning faith to doubt, thanksgiving to complaint, and obedience to indifference or even outright rebellion. The psalm recalls that after being freed from slavery, the people doubted the LORD’s provision in the wilderness, and so that entire generation was prevented from ever entering the Promised Land.
 
What Might This Psalm Have Meant to Jesus?
 
I love the child-like tone of praise of his Father when Jesus assures his sheep, his disciples, that they can never be snatched away from him: “My Father, who has given them, is greater than all” (John 10:29). Jesus loves to speak well of his Father. I hear him joyfully singing in the synagogue or alone in the hills, “The LORD (my Father!) is a great God, and a great King above all gods.” As the first and only truly faithful human being, Jesus never finds it restricting or grating to kneel before his Father. Rather, he delights to express with his body, his gestures and his voice his full-hearted worship. Such praise empowers his ministry. 
 
The dark turn in this psalm also matches Jesus’ experience. As he glorifies his Father before the rest of us, I know it hurts him to be met with resistance. Human rebellion is, at its core, a mystery. Why do we close ourselves off to the source of joy? Why do we look the Son of God right in the face and say, in so many different ways, “No thanks!”? 
 
So Psalm 95 gives Jesus historical justification for his yearning to warn people that turning away from him has dire consequences—not because Jesus is so ego-centric that like a tyrant king he punishes those who ignore him. No, it is because he has come to give abundant life (John 10:10). To refuse Jesus is to choose to stay in spiritual death, unforgiveness, disconnection from God, brokenness in relationships, daily bitterness and constant agitation. He warns sharply so that some might be shaken awake and not miss this opportunity for salvation.
 
The time to respond is now: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” So Jesus presents a parable about the different types of soil which represented different ways of response to the Word of God he brings (Matthew 13:1-23 Mark 4:1-20, Luke 8:4-15). Jesus tells his listeners that some seed fell on the hard path. It could never germinate and the birds took it away. This is the hardness of unbelief. Jesus confirms with his parable the words of the prophet Isaiah, “For this people’s heart has grown dull, and their eyes can barely see” (Isaiah 6:10 quoted in Matthew 13:15).  
 
Jesus throughout his ministry has to reckon with how many simply do not respond to him in faith. Yet, patiently, he keeps risking our rejection to make his offer, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). From stern warning to gentle invitation, Jesus expresses God’s desire in Psalm 95. Today, in this present moment, if you hear his voice, don’t take it for granted. Don’t fail to enter the rest of believing submission. You may not get another chance. 
 
Praying with Jesus
 
Ah, Lord Jesus, like your people of old, 
I have built such a house
At the place called Massah which means testing.
For I have tried your patience with my willful doubt.
I have a getaway cottage at Meribah, which means quarreling. 
For I have carped at your blessings,
Ever wanting more.
I have quibbled with your mercies,
Failing, failing in thanks.
My heart is hard.
 
Oh let it not be too late.
Let it still be today when I can hear your voice.
Open your arms one more time,
And I will come.
Put your hands round my face
And lift my eyes to heaven,
 
That I might sing at last, 
The LORD is my God,
And I am one of his people,
A sheep of his pasture,
A lamb of his flock,
And a sinner of his redeeming.
Show me the paths of life,
That I might find rest for my soul
In joining my voice 
To your eternal praise of the Father.
 
 
 

 

Posted in: Lent

Day 12

Posted on: February 29, 2024
by: Gerrit Dawson, Senior Pastor
DAY 12  THURSDAY
The Good Shepherd
 
Imagine standing with Jesus, right next to him, in prayer to his Father. Read this passage of praise aloud. As you do so, consider that you are praying along with Jesus, your two voices becoming one as you bless God.  
 
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
   and all that is within me,
   bless his holy name!
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
   and forget not all his benefits,
who forgives all your iniquity
   who heals all your diseases, 
who redeems your life from the pit,
   who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
who satisfies you with good
   so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. (Psalm 103:1-5)
 
Psalm 23 
 
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
   He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
   He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
   for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
   I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
   your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me
   in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
   my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
   all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD 
   forever.
 
What Is This Psalm About?   
 
As the youngest son of Jesse, David tended sheep near Bethlehem. He spent many hours alone on the hillsides with much time to think, pray and sing. Surprising to all, the LORD directed Samuel the prophet to anoint David as the next king. God declared, “You shall be shepherd of my people Israel” (2 Samuel 5:2). When he was at his best as a ruler, David understood himself to be a servant of the High King of heaven. He was an undershepherd to the LORD who alone could lead and care for his people.
 
Sometime in his maturity, David wrote this most beloved of psalms. His song reflects a deep intimacy with the LORD. Most strikingly and mysteriously, David’s psalm opens readers to that same intimacy. Across languages, cultures and centuries, the Twenty-Third Psalm draws people close to God. It has seen people through battlefields and childbirth, through bereavement and hostilities. People ask for this poem as they near death and find it a reassuring gateway to the life eternal. Psalm 23 takes us to the heart of a shepherding, hosting God.
What Might This Psalm Have Meant to Jesus?
 
Endued with such spiritual sensitivity to his Father, Jesus no doubt loved this psalm. I am sure that these words, inspired by the Holy Spirit to bless so many millions of us, particularly delighted our brother Jesus. We have no record of his quoting Psalm 23 directly, but we can easily see how David’s greatest song informed Jesus’ profound grasp of his role and sacrificial mission and the comfort, provision and protection the Father bestows on him. 
THE SHEPHERD
John records Jesus’ saying, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me” (John 4:34). Easily then, I can hear Jesus pray, “My Father is my shepherd.” He knows who guides and cares for him. At the same time, Jesus the descendant of David the Shepherd King receives from his Father the mantle of Israel’s shepherd. So he tells us, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. . . . I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me” (John 10:11, 14). Tenderly he cares for his flock. 
 
THROUGH THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW
In Week Four, we will look at several key psalms that would have sustained Jesus in his passion, but today we just note the potency of verse 4. These two sentences uphold Jesus through many threatening conflicts with demons, Romans, and religious authorities. This verse serves as a preview to Jesus of the suffering ahead and offers the way through the suffering even as it predicts it.  
 
We can see the connection with “For you are with me” when, on the night of his arrest, Jesus declares, “Yet, I am not alone, for the Father is with me” (John 16:32). This is the basis of his assurance to his disciples, “Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (John 14:27). The Father was ever with Jesus. Jesus is Emmanuel, which means God with us, so he will promise us at his ascension, “I am with you always” (Matthew 28:20). In any valley of darkness, we are companioned.
 
ANOINTED WITH OIL
Oil soothed and cleansed, refreshed and scented. A gracious host provided oil for the hair and beard as it was a sign of a glad and generous welcome. The week of his crucifixion, Mary of Bethany anoints Jesus’ head with costly nard (John 12:1-8). Jesus receives the gift as a preparation for his burial which will occur within a week. Did he, while she massaged in the fragrant ointment, pray in thanks to his Father, “You anoint my head with oil”?
 
MY CUP RUNS OVER
Jesus’ life overflows with the Father’s love, with the echo of the voice at his baptism: “This is my beloved Son.” Remarkably, we are invited into this divine fellowship. At his bountiful table, our hosting God gives us nothing less than himself as our portion. “The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup,” proclaims David in Psalm 16:5. The blood that Jesus sheds in sacrifice overflows in atoning power. There is more love in God than sin in us. When Jesus is what fills our cup, even when we are amid enemies and failings, bountiful love overflows our lives. So could this line in some way have been the inspiration for Jesus’ presentation of the Eucharist? 
 
GOODNESS AND MERCY FOLLOW ME
The Hebrew verb used here means “to pursue or chase.” This is an extraordinary image of the Almighty LORD running down his beloved with steadfast, loyal love. Is this not what the coming of Jesus demonstrates above all? God sends his Son to seek and to save the lost. He searches for us to rescue us. In his humility, Jesus lays aside his glory so that he may approach us as one of us. The eternal speaks to mortals gently so as not to frighten us away. This idea of God in his goodness and mercy running after us may well be the inspiration for Jesus’ most famous parable, that of the prodigal son. At first sight of his long-lost son, the father throws dignity to the wind, hitches up his robes and runs to welcome home the disgraced (Luke 15:20).
Praying with Jesus 
 
Jesus, I know you drew deep from Psalm 23.
You experienced the Father’s daily shepherding,
Leading you through the perils of ministry,
Refreshing you in Scripture and prayer,
Anointing you freshly with his Spirit,
Walking with you through the dark valleys,
Filling your cup with joy in his love,
Sustaining you in the presence of enemies,
Receiving you into his eternal House
So you can prepare a place for us.
 
Jesus, shepherd me this way every moment!
And open my eyes to those of your beloved flock
Whom you have called me to care for and tend. 
 
 

 

Posted in: Lent

Day 11

Posted on: February 28, 2024
by: Gerrit Dawson, Senior Pastor
DAY 11  WEDNESDAY
Your Sins Are Forgiven!
 
Imagine standing with Jesus, right next to him, in prayer to his Father. Read this passage of praise aloud. As you do so, consider that you are praying along with Jesus, your two voices becoming one as you bless God.  
 
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
   and all that is within me,
   bless his holy name!
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
   and forget not all his benefits,
who forgives all your iniquity
   who heals all your diseases, 
who redeems your life from the pit,
   who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
who satisfies you with good
   so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. (Psalm 103:1-5)
 
Psalm 32:1-5     
 
Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven,
   whose sin is covered.
Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity,
   and in whose spirit there is no deceit.
 
For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away
   through my groaning all day long.
For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;
   my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah
 
I acknowledged my sin to you,
   and I did not cover my iniquity;
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,”
   and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah
 
What Is This Psalm About?   
 
Psalm 32 opens as a wisdom psalm that describes the blessed or fulfilled life as one that experiences the forgiveness of God. David goes on to relate his personal experience with this universal wisdom. He recalls when he kept silent about his sin. Perhaps David remembers how, after having an affair with Bathsheba, he did not repent but went deeper into destruction and arranged for the death of Bathsheba’s husband. The guilt ate away at him, and the unconfessed sin sapped his energy. 
 
Finally, after hearing the convicting words of Nathan the prophet, David broke down and confessed, “I have sinned against the LORD” (2 Samuel 12:13). The relief of forgiveness followed. Consequences still followed; in fact, their effects would ripple for years. But David’s connection to his God returned. His drained, heavy soul was released to be “glad in the LORD” and once more to “shout for joy” as such restoration. 
 
What Might This Psalm Have Meant to Jesus?
 
Throughout his life, reflecting on the psalms that contain words of wisdom gives Jesus continuing insight into the human condition, even about the one part of humanness Jesus did not share—personal sin. Yesterday we saw how Psalm 14 showed Jesus the raw sinfulness of the human condition. Today we see that Psalm 32 teaches Jesus that the one real barrier between us and forgiveness is the refusal to admit our sin. 
 
The people Jesus encounters in his ministry languish under the weight of unconfessed sin. Perhaps Jesus wonders why the people do not ask his Father for forgiveness. He notices that people simply rationalize what they do or say as not sinful. They create endless stories of self-justification. Sometimes they use the very fact that God is forgiving as a reason not to worry about their particular sins. Others are just in so deep they can’t stop specific forms of sins and have stopped trying. To compensate, they numb themselves with work, drink or amusements.
 
But Jesus also encounters those who are crushed under guilt. To these people, their offenses seem more egregious than ordinary sins. These sinners bear such a weight of shame that their lives are bound up in this identity. Jesus feels especially drawn to them. 
 
Psalm 32 gives Jesus the wisdom to understand something he has never had to experience: the relief of confession and forgiveness. The weight of sin burdens people. They spend huge amounts of energy defending themselves. They keep an extensive record of wrongs committed against them. They angrily blame shift. Their capacity for love shrinks. Life diminishes. But when people truly agree with God about their sin and ask for forgiveness, their burden is lifted. They rejoice. They grow kinder. They extend forgiveness. They worship heartily.
 
As Jesus goes forth in his ministry, he calls notorious sinners to himself. Levi the tax collector experiences the relief of forgiveness and joyfully hosts a great feast for Jesus. When the Pharisees question how Jesus could summon such a sinner, Jesus replies, “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:32).  
 
Soon after at the home of a Pharisee, Jesus encounters a woman so identified with her transgressions that she is presented not with a name but as “a woman of the city, who was a sinner” (Luke 7:37). As the woman washes Jesus’ feet with her tears, wipes them with her hair and anoints them with perfume, the Pharisee mentally questions whether Jesus recognizes her sinfulness revealing the timeless truth that virtue-signalers love to identify the morally defective and condemn association with sinners. To the chagrin of the Pharisee, Jesus declares in front of all, “Your sins are forgiven” (Luke 7:48).   
 
In a well-known parable, Jesus tells of another sinner, a tax collector, at the temple “who standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other” (Luke 18:13-14). 
 
Jesus knows from reading and praying Psalm 32 that a world burdened by innate sin and its persistent, destructive expression could only find relief through daring confession. He offers a loving presence before which sinners can come clean. His passion for sinners elicits in others what Malcolm Guite has called “the relief of honesty” (Guite, pg. 32). 
 
How could Jesus pray the plea of Psalm 51: “Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin!”? (Psalm 51:2). He had no personal sin to be confessed. Yet true intercession for others involves empathy, standing in their place in prayer, taking their part. Jesus had already done that in taking a sinner’s baptism, and he would do this more completely in taking a criminal’s death. He so identifies with sinners that he can, holding each one of us up to his Father, pray, “Against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.” He prays this for us, yearning for us to pray these words with him, to make them our own as we pray after the one who has made our sins his own. His compassionate way with sinners gives us confidence that we can dare to own our sin. He stands by us as we do and rejoices with us as we find the freedom of forgiveness.
 
Praying with Jesus
 
My sin—the damage done, the cover-up,
The pretending, the justifying, the projecting—
Takes so much energy to keep as my own. 
 
Shame whispers that if I come clean,
I will be rejected, by you, by others.
I will be outed as a pretender
Exposed for the needy child I am,
In the end only out for myself,
Worthy only to be banished from fit company.
So I banish myself from your company.
Going prayerless, going it alone.
 
But shame is not the only voice,
For your Spirit is within me. 
You have made me for yourself
And you will not let me go. 
I’m more exhausted than any atheist!
For I know the sweetness of the God I’m avoiding.
I’m miserable.
 
What is this news that reaches me?
That you, Jesus, stand before your Father 
Interceding for me. 
You speak the devastating truth about me
As if it were your own.
“Against you, you only have I sinned”
You say for me, you say as me,
For we are one and I am in you forever.
 
Oh Lord Jesus, you break my heart!
Stop, stop taking my sin.
I confess it. I will give to you freely.
Forgive me. 
 
 

 

Posted in: Lent

Day 10

Posted on: February 27, 2024
by: Gerrit Dawson, Senior Pastor
DAY 10  TUESDAY
Not Even One!
 
Imagine standing with Jesus, right next to him, in prayer to his Father. Read this passage of praise aloud. As you do so, consider that you are praying along with Jesus, your two voices becoming one as you bless God.  
 
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
   and all that is within me,
   bless his holy name!
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
   and forget not all his benefits,
who forgives all your iniquity
   who heals all your diseases, 
who redeems your life from the pit,
   who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
who satisfies you with good
   so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. (Psalm 103:1-5)
 
Psalm 14
 
The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds;
   there is none who does good.
 
The LORD looks down from heaven on the children of man,
   to see if there are any who understand, 
   who seek after God.
 
They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt;
   there is none who does good, 
   not even one.
 
Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers
   who eat up my people as they eat bread
   and do not call upon the LORD?
 
There they are in great terror,
    for God is with the generation of the righteous.
You would shame the plans of the poor,
   but the LORD is his refuge.
 
Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion!
   When the LORD restores the fortunes of his people,
   let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad.
 
What Is This Psalm About?   
 
This is primarily a wisdom psalm. Rather than a direct prayer, Psalm 14 mainly describes the truth of the human situation before God. It starkly reveals the foolishness of not accounting for the reality of God. Its grim assessment of our innate sinfulness leads to the one line of prayer in the song, a heartfelt plea for the LORD to save us. 
 
What Might This Psalm Have Meant to Jesus?
 
It’s difficult to understand how someone could be truly human and yet not be predisposed to sin. How could one be tempted, yet not feel an immediate propensity to yield? How could one feel completely oriented toward the Father even as everyone around seemed focused on self? Jesus lives this freedom. He lives this loneliness. He lives this joy. He lives being odd. 
 
I wonder if it startled him as a child to see other children be cruel just to be cruel. I suspect it hurt him to see a pack of kids mock a child for being slow, having a malformed hand, or speaking to the animals. He would have felt the sting of comments that his beloved father Joseph was not really his father. He would have been sadly baffled that others found his love of worship and reading Scripture to be weird, when, as Jews, they all said that loving the LORD with all their heart was their primary duty.
 
As he grew into adulthood, Jesus would have seen that people do not grow out of cruelty, indifference or the tendency to do what is wrong and self-centered. They just learn to hide it and to live with hypocrisy. The man cheating customers in the marketplace still sings the psalms at synagogue. The woman gossiping poisonously about her neighbor still acts like they are the best of friends when they are together. The pious Pharisees, striving hard to preserve the faith amidst Roman rule, so often make serving the LORD seem like joyless, compulsive bondage. Good believers, under the crush of life’s pressures, might question the very existence of their heavenly Father.
 
Throughout his ministry, Jesus has to reckon with the fact that everyone is prone to break the commandments. Each and all betray God and one another. Psalm 14 helps Jesus make sense of this reality. He is not just being judgmental or overly pious in noting the sad truth. In fact, his heart breaks knowing where these self-focused decisions and actions always lead. Ruptured relationships, revenge, further distortions, despair and even hatred toward God inevitably follow.
 
The psalm helps Jesus accept how different from others he feels: “There is none who does good, not even one.” He realizes, though, that some know the truth about themselves. They own the ruin in their lives and long to be freed from it. He feels so drawn to show them his Father’s love. Others, though, insist that they are good in themselves. They’re sure Psalm 14 is about someone else. They’re insulted at even the suggestion that they are among the foolish and the corrupt. Jesus knows that to save them he must starkly tell them the truth.
 
 
So he says, “For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person” (Mark 7:21-23). 
 
He presents a parable of a man who thought he had accumulated enough wealth to have no need of God or others and ends the teaching with this frightening admonition: “But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God ” (Luke 12:20-21). 
 
And he shockingly warns even the spiritual among us that “[n]ot everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness’” (Matthew 7:21-23).
 
In praying Psalm 14, Jesus receives the wisdom to understand the sinful human nature he has come to confront, and he finds words to lament the lost state of the world: “Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion.” Zion symbolizes the place where God dwells with his people. Jesus, who is Emmanuel, God with us, knows that in his ministry, his Father has sent forth salvation from Zion. Jesus goes forth to forgive those who own their sin. 
 
Praying with Jesus
 
I remember the sickening surprises
Of first learning how people do wrong.
The stealing of my coins startled me;
Being lied to by a relative shocked me.
A fist in my face for no provocation
Taught me that evil 
Does not have to make sense.
Yet it is there, unpredictable and ever-destructive.
 
Sinful hearts surrounded your pure one, Jesus.
I feel lonely for you.
What we do to each other, 
Too often to those who love us most,
Surely pierced you.
How did you stand the grating noise 
Of our cruel, coarse words?
How did you endure the isolation
Of being the only one who desired
In earnest sincerity, the goodness of God?
 
How justly you could have condemned,
And left us to judgment we deserve.
But instead, you went forth out of Zion,
Out of the love of Father, Son and Spirit
To seek and to save the lost.
 
I’m so glad you spoke the truth of us.
I’m only offended if I’m too proud 
Or frightened to own up to what I already know.
 
I need a savior, one who accounts for the very worst of me
And resolves the conflict, atones for the harm and makes me new.
 
 
 
 
Posted in: Lent

Day 9

Posted on: February 26, 2024
by: Gerrit Dawson, Senior Pastor

DAY 9   MONDAY
Let Your Face Shine!

Imagine standing with Jesus, right next to him, in prayer to his Father. Read this passage of praise aloud. As you do so, consider that you are praying along with Jesus, your two voices becoming one as you bless God.  
 
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
   and all that is within me,
   bless his holy name!
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
   and forget not all his benefits,
who forgives all your iniquity
   who heals all your diseases, 
who redeems your life from the pit,
   who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
who satisfies you with good
   so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. (Psalm 103:1-5)
 
Psalm 80:3-7, 14-19
 
Restore us, O God;
   let your face shine, that we may be saved!
 
O LORD God of hosts,
   how long will you be angry with your people’s prayers?
You have fed them with the bread of tears
   and given them tears to drink in full measure.
You make us an object of contention for our neighbors,
   and our enemies laugh among themselves.
 
Restore us, O God of hosts;
   let your face shine, that we may be saved. . . . 
 
Turn again, O God of hosts!
   Look down from heaven, and see;
have regard for this vine,
   the stock that your right hand planted,
   and for the son whom you made strong for yourself.
 
They have burned it with fire; they have cut it down;
   may they perish at the rebuke of your face!
But let your hand be on the man of your right hand,
   the son of man whom you have made strong for yourself!
Then we shall not turn back from you;
   give us life, and we will call upon your name!
 
Restore us, O LORD God of hosts!
  Let your face shine, that we may be saved!
 
What Is This Psalm About?
 
Psalm 80 expresses the dismay of God’s people during a time of national disaster. The psalm does not specify the exact event, but it could refer to the Assyrian invasion of the northern kingdom of Israel in 722 BC. Or perhaps the psalm recounts the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BC when the Babylonians  
burned the sacred temple and deported the Israelites to Babylon for seventy years of indentured service. 
 
The people understood these calamities as acts of judgment by the LORD against the unbelief, idolatry and injustice among his people. The prophets had warned Israel for years to repent. Now, when destruction and oppression have overtaken everyone, the people cry out for the LORD to turn back to his chosen. They plead for God to relent in his just anger and stretch forth a saving hand of mercy. 
 
The refrain of this song echoes Aaron’s famous blessing from Numbers 6:24-26:
“Thus you shall bless the people of Israel: you shall say to them,
 
The LORD bless you and keep you;
the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
 
So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.”
The people longed for the days when they basked in the shining pleasure of the God who was a father to his son, his nation, his chosen, Israel. They longed to be again the fruitful vine the LORD once planted and protected. 
 
So they cried out, “Let your face shine, that we may be saved!” They turned back to the LORD and begged him to turn back to them. Such mercy, they promised, would keep them from turning away again.
 
What Might This Psalm Have Meant to Jesus?
 
The people of the LORD in Jesus’ day languished under foreign oppression similar to when this psalm was written. Roman soldiers patrolled their streets. Faithful Hebrews hung for days from crosses for crimes against the state, reminding people who ruled the world. Taxes impoverished hard-working tradesmen. Romans ridiculed the worship of Yahweh as a delusional allegiance to a weak god. Once enslaved in Egypt, once exiled to Babylon, the Jews in their own land now again feel in bondage. Had God forgotten them? Might he shine the favor of his presence upon his chosen once again?
 
I envision Jesus hearing this psalm sung out in a Sabbath worship. His heart stirs along with the hearts of his people. He feels the weight of their lives. He laments those who suffered at the hands of the Romans. Jesus grows restless with them for the arrival of the Messiah to restore them. He sings loudly with the congregation, “Restore us, O God of hosts; let your face shine, that we may be saved!” His soul joins the worshippers in longing, “See us. Hear us! Give us life!” He is the true vine (John 15:1), fruitful and faithful as Israel was meant to be. He wants to graft the weary and the barren onto himself.
 
I know Jesus delights in the deeper significance of the prayer: “But let your hand be on the man of your right hand, the son of man whom you have made strong for yourself.” The LORD had called Israel his “firstborn son” (Exodus 4:22). He had also designated David and the kings who followed him to be his sons (2 Samuel 7:14). But the Spirit had also revealed to the prophet Daniel the vision of “one like a son of man” to whom the LORD gave an everlasting kingdom (Daniel 7:13-14).
 
Jesus knows as he raises this song that he is its truest meaning. Jesus is the eternal Son of God who came to us as the Son of Man. He is the LORD’s face shining in love upon his people. He will regard the people in their plight, truly seeing them. Then he will act with compassion like the sun breaking through clouds bringing relief and hope. 
 
Paul writes, “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6). Jesus is the glory of God shining through a human face. He is God looking upon us in favor. In answer to the very psalm Jesus prays with his people, Jesus turns to us in steadfast love. He restores us. As his mother prayed shortly after his conception, “He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy” (Luke 1:54). For Jesus fully embodies his role as “the son of man whom you have made strong for yourself.” He gives us life, just as he has prayed alongside a languishing nation. Jesus himself is Aaron’s blessing incarnate!
 
Praying with Jesus
 
I cast my gaze earthward.
The weight of life pushes it down.
I don’t want to look up and see the mess
Of my life’s pain or the world’s agony.
Too much confusion,
Too much suffering in the world.
 
But then I feel your gentle strong hand
Under my chin, lifting my face.
“Look up! Look at me!”
 
I see you smiling.
Not naively.
You know all.
But you have accounted for all,
Paid for it and forgiven it.
 
Your face radiates
Acceptance. Calling. Mission.
 
You shine upon me 
Until I glow with your favor.
 
Now I go forth to see,
To shine, to bless
That all may know,
You have not forsaken us.
You have seen and saved. 
 
 

 

Posted in: Lent

Day 8

Posted on: February 25, 2024
by: Gerrit Dawson, Senior Pastor

WEEK 2 INTRODUCTION
SEEKING AND SAVING THE LOST

Melani Pyke. Jesus Carrying Lost Sheep Home. Contemporary.

This week we imagine particular psalms that Jesus might have prayed during his ministry. We will consider how almost immediately Jesus had a profound effect on people. For the Light of the World made a direct assault on the darkness in the human heart, and the path of salvation Jesus offered ran through repentance from pride and self-sufficiency. Some people were offended and reacted with defiance. Many of those in positions of prestige labeled Jesus scandalous. At the same time, those who knew themselves to be weak, ill, lost, or broken joyfully received him. We will see both kinds of responses this week and discover how the Psalms would have helped Jesus make sense of the opposition even as they kept his heart flowing toward those who needed him desperately. 
 
Those who welcomed Jesus were especially drawn to his self-identification as the Good Shepherd. The nature of this metaphorical role still compels believers today. This contemporary painting by Melani Pyke touches us with the tenderness of the Lord who became our shepherd. 
 
DAY 8  SUNDAY
On a Cliff's Edge in Nazareth
 
Imagine standing with Jesus, right next to him, in prayer to his Father. Read this passage of praise aloud. As you do so, consider that you are praying along with Jesus, your two voices becoming one as you bless God.  
 
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
   and all that is within me,
   bless his holy name!
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
   and forget not all his benefits,
who forgives all your iniquity
   who heals all your diseases, 
who redeems your life from the pit,
   who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
who satisfies you with good
   so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. (Psalm 103:1-5)
 
Psalm 71:1-7, 10-12
 
In you, O LORD, do I take refuge;
   let me never be put to shame!
In your righteousness deliver me and rescue me;
   incline your ear to me, and save me!
Be to me a rock of refuge,
   to which I may continually come;
you have given the command to save me,
   for you are my rock and my fortress.
 
Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked,
   from the grasp of the unjust and cruel man.
For you, O Lord, are my hope,
   my trust, O LORD, from my youth.
Upon you I have leaned from before my birth;
   you are he who took me from my mother’s womb.
My praise is continually of you.
 
I have been as a portent to many,
   but you are my strong refuge. . . . 
 
For my enemies speak concerning me;
   those who watch for my life consult together
and say, “God has forsaken him;
   pursue and seize him,
   for there is none to deliver him.”
 
O God, be not far from me;
   O my God, make haste to help me!
 
What Is This Psalm About?   
 
This is a psalm of lament. That is, it is a song of sorrow for suffering and a crying out to God. The poet thirsts for the comfort of the LORD’s sustaining mercy. He makes his plea in trust that God will ultimately deliver him.
 
What Might This Psalm Have Meant to Jesus?
 
This week we consider psalms that connect to various episodes in the ministry of Jesus. After his testing in the wilderness, Jesus returns to the region of Galilee. Luke tells us that Jesus is full of “the power of the Spirit.” As he teaches in the synagogues, all the people praise him—until he returns to his hometown of Nazareth (Luke 4:14-15). 
 
The Sabbath service in Nazareth begins auspiciously with Jesus reading from Isaiah 61 about the encouraging promise of a messiah. Luke narrates that “the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him” (Luke 4:20). When Jesus declares that “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled,” the people marvel with delight. Their own local boy seems to be announcing the Christ’s arrival at last!
 
But then Jesus begins to teach about Israel’s great drought during the prophet Elijah’s time. Jesus tells his listeners how the LORD sent Elijah to care for a widow of Sidon who was not a Jew, but a pagan. Next, Jesus reminds the assembly how God used the prophet Elisha to heal the leprosy not of an Israelite, but of a hated Syrian. 
 
The congregation gets the point. Jesus does not show preferential regard for his neighbors, and he summons his own kinsmen to repentance. He declines to perform miracles among them because they cannot see that the boy who grew up in Joseph’s home is the Son of the Father. The insult evokes fury in the people because they feel that Jesus, speaking as if he stands in God’s place, has blasphemed the unique holiness of the LORD. The gathering becomes an angry mob as they drive Jesus out of town and up to the top of a hill. They plan to throw him down and then finish the job with stoning if needed. But Jesus, “passing through their midst,” leaves Nazareth never 
to return.
 
Jesus emerges physically unharmed. However, while he speaks the message the Spirit gives him, undoubtedly this denunciation wounds him. We know how rejection stings. Disappointing others saddens us but provoking them to wrath and utter repudiation shames us. It feels like bridges have been burned. Life as we know it is over. There is no going back. The way forward is lonely.
 
We can imagine, then, Jesus praying Psalm 71 that evening as he reflects on the tumult his teaching caused. Lament, a song of sadness and a cry for help, rises in him: “In you, O LORD, my Father, do I take refuge. . . . Be to me a rock of refuge, to which I may continually come. . . . For my enemies speak concerning me. . . . O God, be not far from me; O my God, make haste to help me!” 
 
Perhaps in seeking solace in the face of such harsh rejection, Jesus does what we do. He thinks of his story, of those who loved him, of the ways God had been with him. Maybe he recalls being taught the account of his miraculous conception and precarious birth, how he had a unique calling from the beginning. So these words from Psalm 71 would have been anchoring: “Upon you I have leaned from before my birth. You are he who took me from my mother’s womb.”
 
We readily feel how well Psalm 71 would have described Jesus’ experience, given voice to his pain in rejection and offered words pleading for his Father’s protection and comfort. This psalm might well have carried the weight of the day for Jesus.
 
Praying with Jesus
 
I have seldom realized, dear Jesus,
How the stings of rejection
Have given me a bond with you.
 
I always thought you were so confident
That the wrath and rage never touched you.
 
But now I see how angering your first teachers
Could make you feel that 
You must have done something wrong.
 
Your words embarrassed your own family,
Scandalizing their life in your town.
Did you feel shame that you had let them down?
 
When all that hatred drove against you,
Perhaps you wondered if you should have spoken differently.
I know you felt the loneliness that 
You could never go home again.
 
When I have felt like this, I usually deserved it.
You did not.
But now I know that you felt the sorrow nonetheless.
You cried out to your Father for solace.
 
So you know how it is with me.
But more, preciously more, 
I know something of how it was with you,
The pain you paid to tell us the truth,
The sorrow you bore and the solitary path you walked.
 
Now I would not trade my experience of rejection
For it bonds me to you.
It awakes love that wants to soothe you.
I want you to know that I am here,
Wishing I could be with you then,
Dear companion along the way.
 
 

 

Posted in: Lent

Day 7

Posted on: February 24, 2024
by: Gerrit Dawson, Senior Pastor

DAY 7   SATURDAY
The Son Does What He Sees His Father Doing

Imagine standing with Jesus, right next to him, in prayer to his Father. Read this passage of praise aloud. As you do so, consider that you are praying along with Jesus, your two voices becoming one as you bless God.  

Bless the LORD, O my soul,
   and all that is within me,
   bless his holy name!
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
   and forget not all his benefits,
who forgives all your iniquity
   who heals all your diseases, 
who redeems your life from the pit,
   who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
who satisfies you with good
   so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. (Psalm 103:1-5)
 
Psalm 103:6-14, 17-18
 
The LORD works righteousness
   and justice for all who are oppressed.
He made known his ways to Moses,
   his acts to the people of Israel.
The LORD is merciful and gracious,
   slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
He will not always chide,
   nor will he keep his anger forever.
He does not deal with us according to our sins,
   nor repay us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
   so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
   so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
As a father shows compassion to his children,
   so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him.
For he knows our frame;
   he remembers that we are dust. . . .
 
But the steadfast love of the LORD is from everlasting 
   to everlasting on those who fear him,
   and his righteousness to children’s children,
to those who keep his covenant
   and remember to do his commandments.
The LORD has established his throne in the heavens,
   and his kingdom rules over all.
 
What Is This Psalm About?   
 
Each day we’ve been praying the first five verses of Psalm 103. Both for ourselves and with Jesus, we’ve been offering these essential praises to God for his character and gracious acts. Today we take up the main section of this psalm. David extols the LORD for his faithfulness to his people through the centuries. The history of God’s saving mercy witnesses to his eternal character of mercy and steadfast love. David notes in particular God’s compassion towards us in both our mortal frailty and our native sinfulness.
What Might This Psalm Have Meant to Jesus?
 
Verse 7 harks back to the early days of God’s people when the LORD “made known his ways to Moses.” God had revealed his sacred name to Moses (Exodus 3:14) and had given his commandments to (Exodus 20) and established his covenant with the people he freed from slavery (Exodus 24:8). However, in Exodus 33:18, Moses asked for even more! He wanted to see for himself the glory of the LORD. God agreed to show Moses his glorious goodness but only indirectly as he passed by. In that awesome moment, the LORD self-declared, “The LORD, the LORD, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,” words that would be echoed in Israel’s prayers through the centuries (Exodus 34:6). 
 
As Jesus prays this psalm, he affirms and articulates these fundamental characteristics of the LORD. Yet, while the great Moses was only granted a “back” view of God’s glory, Jesus would declare that he knew God so intimately, he saw him. 
 
To Jesus, these praises of the LORD I AM are apt descriptions of the God he knows intimately as his heavenly Father. As Jesus grows in knowledge of the Scriptures, in prayer and worship and in the doing of the LORD’s will, Jesus becomes more and more aware of his unique relationship to the God of Israel. In John’s gospel, we see how closely connected are Jesus’ words and actions to what he perceives of his Father when he says, “The Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing” (John 5:19-20).
 
The Son imitates his Father, so Psalm 103’s descriptions of the LORD also depict Jesus’ essential personality and reveal his motivation and mission. Jesus internalizes his Father’s heart and then expresses it in the world. In so doing, Jesus understands and willingly receives his marching orders for ministry. He who delights to do his Father’s will demonstrates in our physical world what he uniquely perceives in the heavenly realm. Jesus enacts his Father’s heart to be “slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” and mercy.
 
Having a true human body himself, he shows tender regard for our mortal frames. As a father has compassion for his children, Jesus too shows compassion to us in all our brokenness and infirmity. In the Gospels, the Greek word translated as “compassion” is only used to describe Jesus himself or by Jesus in talking about his Father. Jesus ever acts from this emotional, empathetic, heart-reaching love. This is a God-like quality. 
 
Throughout his ministry, Jesus takes up his Father’s place in forgiving sins. He declares such mercy throughout his ministry. Then, through his love of obedience, even unto death on the cross, Jesus atones for sin. He removes our sins “as far as the east is from the west”—an infinite distance!
 
Praying with Jesus
 
Bless the LORD O my soul!
I rejoice with you, Jesus, to declare with you
That your Father’s love is from everlasting to everlasting.
His steadfast love endures forever.
Great is such faithfulness.
And you, Lord Jesus, are the spitting image of your Father.
You came to speak his love in a unique, precious tone of voice.
You came to stretch forth his healing hand, 
You came to display the strength of his mighty arm
In subduing evil and liberating the captive, the possessed and afflicted.
 
As a father shows compassion, so you showed the compassion
Of your heavenly Father to me!
All in the power of the Spirit with which he anointed you.
 
Praising your Father with you, the Son, 
So moved by the Holy Spirit,
In this moment I know myself lifted up by the Trinity
Into the Trinity.
I am enfolded in triune love 
And given a voice to bless you before heaven and earth.
 
 
Posted in: Lent

Day 6

Posted on: February 23, 2024
by: Gerrit Dawson, Senior Pastor
DAY 6  FRIDAY
Tempted in the Desert
 
Imagine standing with Jesus, right next to him, in prayer to his Father. Read this passage of praise aloud. As you do so, consider that you are praying along with Jesus, your two voices becoming one as you bless God.  
 
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
   and all that is within me,
   bless his holy name!
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
   and forget not all his benefits,
who forgives all your iniquity
   who heals all your diseases, 
who redeems your life from the pit,
   who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
who satisfies you with good
   so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. (Psalm 103:1-5)
 
Psalm 73:1-5, 13-19, 21-26
 
?Truly God is good to Israel,
   to those who are pure in heart.
But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled,
   my steps had nearly slipped.
For I was envious of the arrogant
   when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
For they have no pangs until death;
   their bodies are fat and sleek.
They are not in trouble as others are;
   they are not stricken like the rest of mankind. . . .
 
All in vain have I kept my heart clean
   and washed my hands in innocence.
For all the day long I have been stricken
   and rebuked every morning.
If I had said, “I will speak thus,”
   I would have betrayed the generation of your children.
 
But when I thought how to understand this,
   it seemed to me a wearisome task,
until I went into the sanctuary of God;
   then I discerned their end.
Truly you set them in slippery places;
   you make them fall to ruin.
How they are destroyed in a moment,
   swept away utterly by terrors!
 
When my soul was embittered,
   when I was pricked in heart,
I was brutish and ignorant;
   I was like a beast toward you.
 
Nevertheless, I am continually with you;
   you hold my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel,
   and afterward you will receive me to glory.
Whom have I in heaven but you?
   And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
   but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
 
What Is This Psalm About?   
 
The poet sees how the proud seem to have no troubles. They give the appearance of complete sufficiency and ease. Knowing his own troubles, the psalmist feels envy rise inside. His struggles to live righteously seem futile. Why work so hard to be good if just doing what you want is so much easier? This psalm names the temptation to consider faith in the LORD to be a waste of effort. If the outcomes are worse for the faithful, why not be one of the wicked who live in ease?
 
Yet when the writer leaves his self-absorbed contemplation and returns to the community of those praising and praying, his vision clears. In the sanctuary, with a more eternal perspective, he recalls the lonely, fearful and sudden end of those who deny God. Then the psalmist turns to consider the relief and joy of always being near God. Troubles will come and frail human flesh will fail: “But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”
 
What Might This Psalm Have Meant to Jesus?
 
After his baptism, with all its affirmation of Jesus’ identity and mission, the Spirit drives Jesus into the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11; Mark 1:12-13; Luke 4:1-13). During Jesus’ forty days of fasting, the devil tempts him. He seeks to ruin Christ’s ministry before it begins. Why not shortcut the growling hunger all humans feel when fasting by doing what no one else can do? Just turn stones into bread! Why not become the ruler of the world by sheer power rather than follow this plan of loving the world back to God from the inside out?  
 
In these agonizing hours, Jesus may have been tempted to envy. Could he not be like a Roman centurion who just issues commands? Wouldn’t he get farther if he had the respected position of a Pharisee? Jesus faces the temptation to envy those who have the power to accomplish what he longs to do but by a much easier path.
I imagine Jesus in the desert working his way through Psalm 73. The psalmist provided words for Jesus’ own temptations to envy, his own impulse to jumpstart the work of ministry with superhuman displays. There in the wilderness, Jesus cannot go to the great temple for perspective. He has to enter the sanctuary in his mind. This is the place formed by all the Scriptures he has learned, the temple this carpenter fashioned within his heart through many hours of prayer. As he resists the devil’s suggestions, Jesus enters that spiritual house, and, like the psalmist, his vision clears.
 
Once more he feels his Father’s presence perhaps recalling: “Nevertheless I am continually with you!” He shudders at what a close call he has had as if to say, “I could have betrayed the generation of your children!” He reaffirms the very truth of his soul: “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth I desire besides you.” There it is. The depth of him. Other desires have been held out to him with all the allure of the forbidden fruit. But he has resisted. He has passed the test. 
 
In Psalm 73, Jesus would also find precious words to prepare him for where his life of faithfulness would lead. On the cross, his flesh would fail. He inhabited a body that could die, and the Roman process of crucifixion would cruelly ensure that it would. His actual physical heart would fail under the stress of such torture and then it would be pierced by a lance. Moreover, there would come a moment when even the ability to will, to choose, would pass. He would entrust himself into his Father’s hands at the last (Day 25, Psalm 31:5). And then he could do no more, neither choose for or against his God. Then, the glorious truth of the words of this psalm would be clear. Flesh and heart, outer man and inner man, not only may but will fail. But then Jesus will find, as we do, when strength ebbs and nerve is lost, Someone supports him from underneath. God the Father is the strength of his heart, even if it stops beating. 
 
Praying with Jesus 
 
Was this season of temptation in the desert
Actually the rich soil for your teaching?
As the evil one enticed you towards an easier path,
Did you realize, “What does it profit a man 
To gain the whole world but forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36).
 
Was this when you felt the tug of the prodigal’s elder brother,
Tempted to envy, lured to despise his own faithfulness,
But then hearing the loving pleas of his father,
“Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours” (Luke 15:31). 
 
Your words to me were never witty platitudes 
That cost nothing but the minor effort of cleverness. 
 
They arose from your praying the Scriptures 
While in the grip of compelling temptation.
How grateful I am that you discovered,
By considering alluring alternatives,
Through the agony of faithful resistance,
That there is nothing on earth you desire 
But your Father and his pleasure.
He is all you had.
Your Father is all I have
In heaven or earth worth living for. 
Truly, Jesus, I pray with you, 
“But for me, it is good to be near God.”
 
 

 

Posted in: Lent

Day 5

Posted on: February 22, 2024
by: Gerrit Dawson, Senior Pastor
DAY 5  THURSDAY
Baptism: Your God Has Anointed You
 
Imagine standing with Jesus, right next to him, in prayer to his Father. Read this passage of praise aloud. As you do so, consider that you are praying along with Jesus, your two voices becoming one as you bless God.  
 
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
   and all that is within me,
   bless his holy name!
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
   and forget not all his benefits,
who forgives all your iniquity
   who heals all your diseases, 
who redeems your life from the pit,
   who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
who satisfies you with good
   so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. (Psalm 103:1-5)
 
Psalm 45:1-9
 
My heart overflows with a pleasing theme;
   I address my verses to the king;
   my tongue is like the pen of a ready scribe.
 
You are the most handsome of the sons of men;
   grace is poured upon your lips;
   therefore God has blessed you forever.
Gird your sword on your thigh, O mighty one,
   in your splendor and majesty!
 
In your majesty ride out victoriously
   for the cause of truth and meekness and righteousness;
   let your right hand teach you awesome deeds!
Your arrows are sharp
   in the heart of the king’s enemies;
   the peoples fall under you.
 
Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.
   The scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of uprightness;
   you have loved righteousness and hated wickedness.
Therefore God, your God, has anointed you
   with the oil of gladness beyond your companions;
   your robes are all fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia.
From ivory palaces stringed instruments make you glad;
   daughters of kings are among your ladies of honor;
   at your right hand stands the queen in gold of Ophir.
 
What Is This Psalm About?   
 
This is a song for a royal wedding. Authors of several psalms, the sons of Korah extol the majesty of the king as he prepares to wed. The whole nation rejoiced when a good and righteous king, representing the LORD’s reign of blessing over his people, married a worthy bride. A king who ruled in righteousness created justice throughout the land, and as he rode forth to subdue enemies, the people dwelled in peace. The monarch of Israel had been anointed king by a priest. Therefore, on his wedding day, the very favor of the LORD I AM falls like the finest oil over this king. He is blessed by God himself in whose name he reigns. The beautiful bride portends royal offspring and the hope that the royal line endures. 
 
Though we do not know to which king specifically this psalm was addressed, we do know it is in line with the unconditional promise of the LORD that there would always be an heir of David on the throne of Israel (2 Samuel 7:16). In this way, Psalm 45, even on the first day it was sung, looked forward to the day of the final Messiah when God himself would take his throne to rule on the earth setting all things right. 
 
What Might This Psalm Have Meant to Jesus?
 
Once more the book of Hebrews confirms the deepest meaning of a psalm to be about Jesus. In fact, Hebrews places the praise of the king on the lips of God the Father! 
But of the Son he says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever,
     the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom.
You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness;
therefore God, your God, has anointed you
     with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.” (Hebrews 1:8)
When would Jesus have experienced such anointing from his heavenly Father? We return to the event of his baptism. Matthew describes: 
And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:6-17)
As John pours water on Jesus, the Father anoints our King with the Spirit. This “oil of gladness” will sustain him in joy through all his trials. Then the Father introduces Jesus publicly as his beloved Son. He summons the world to acknowledge the rule of the Lord. Imagine Jesus reciting this psalm as he contemplates what had happened to him in the Jordan. All these words to the king of Israel were for him! 
 
In the psalm, the singers praise the king for being “the most handsome of the sons of men.” Jesus may have laughed at this since this carpenter’s son from Nazareth was not known for his attractive appearance. In fact, he would also have known Isaiah 53:3 which declared that the suffering servant had “no beauty that that we should desire him.” Jesus may not have been comely according to external norms, but what beauty of love and holiness flowed from within him. What integrity, energy, passion, tenderness and faithfulness he displayed as he sought and saved the lost. How beautiful he looked to those who answered his call! 
 
At his baptism, Jesus accepts his mission. He leaves the waters ready to go forth and reclaim those whose lives had been usurped by the evil one. Steeped in the Word of God, he wields that sword like a holy warrior to liberate his people. 
 
By Jesus’ command, demons will flee, sickness will yield to health, chains of shame will fall away. Sinners will be absolved, the wayward brought home, and multitudes called out of darkness into light.
 
Jesus is all love. Love refuses to let the loved ones languish under slavery. Jesus rides out from his baptism to engage in a war of salvation, a fight against the principalities and powers of evil in order to redeem the world. His right hand will stretch forth in power to heal. His words, explaining and applying the Scriptures, will convict, piercing right into the heart of the most stubborn refusal.
 
Singing Psalm 45 after he rises from baptism, Jesus knows himself to be the king, the king of love, who hates the wickedness that ruins his people. He marches forward into ministry to marry his bride, his church, in 
redeeming power.
 
Praying with Jesus
 
Blessed are those who are invited 
To the marriage supper of the Lamb (Revelation 19:9).
Mighty King Jesus, how can it be
That you have betrothed yourself to me?
I look upon my hand and see the most dazzling ring:
Your Holy Spirit, the promise of all that is to come.
You have bought for me my wedding dress,
Dazzling pure garments of your own holiness.
My rags washed now in your precious blood.
My impure heart made new.
 
Every day I prepare for an eternity of reconciled faithfulness.
Grace is poured upon your lips
As you say the sweetest things to me:
“Your sins are forgiven.”
“Fear not, I have called you by name, you are mine.”
“I will come again and take you to myself,
That where I am, you may be also.”
 
Most glorious King and Husband,
Jesus lover of my soul,
Fan your Spirit in me into flame
That I might make choices today
To adorn our marriage on that Great Day.
 
 

 

Posted in: Lent

Day 4

Posted on: February 21, 2024
by: Gerrit Dawson, Senior Pastor
DAY 4  WEDNESDAY
Baptism: I Delight to Do Your Will
 
Imagine standing with Jesus, right next to him, in prayer to his Father. Read this passage of praise aloud. As you do so, consider that you are praying along with Jesus, your two voices becoming one as you bless God.  
 
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
   and all that is within me,
   bless his holy name!
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
   and forget not all his benefits,
who forgives all your iniquity
   who heals all your diseases, 
who redeems your life from the pit,
   who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
who satisfies you with good
   so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. (Psalm 103:1-5)
 
Psalm 40:4-10, 16 
 
Blessed is the man who makes
   the LORD his trust,
who does not turn to the proud,
   to those who go astray after a lie!
You have multiplied, O LORD my God,
   your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us;
   none can compare with you!
I will proclaim and tell of them,
   yet they are more than can be told.
In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted,
   but you have given me an open ear.
Burnt offering and sin offering
   you have not required.
Then I said, “Behold, I have come;
   in the scroll of the book it is written of me:
I delight to do your will, O my God;
   your law is within my heart.”
 
I have told the glad news of deliverance
   in the great congregation;
behold, I have not restrained my lips,
   as you know, O LORD.
I have not hidden your deliverance within my heart;
   I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation;
I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness
   from the great congregation. . . .
 
But may all who seek you
   rejoice and be glad in you;
may those who love your salvation
   say continually, “Great is the LORD!”
 
What Is This Psalm About?
 
The Hebrew Scriptures abound in requirements for offerings and sacrifices. Blood represented life; the shed blood of an animal substituted for the persons who had sinned. The presentation of a firstborn animal or the first fruits of the harvest symbolized the offering of the worshiper’s whole life. People gave back a portion of what the LORD had given them in rich harvests and multiplying herds.
 
But these same Scriptures reveal that the actual sacrifices were not in themselves the endgame. They merely represented the giving of our very lives in joyful obedience to the Giver of Life. Rituals in themselves could become meaningless, begrudged, and so of no avail. What God has always wanted is the human heart enacting obedience from a free will inspired by love. Through the years, the LORD has saved his people from slavery, wilderness wanderings, food scarcity, enemies, sinfulness and all its consequences. In return, God desires our thanks and praise for the deepest purpose of humanity is grateful communion with the triune God.  
 
In Psalm 40, David gives thanks for the deliverances of the LORD. He desires to give himself to the One who has given him so much. In his prayer of joyful offering, he realizes the deeper truth in every external act of worship: “Sacrifice and offering you have not desired.” If only understood at face value, that prayer seems not to be true! God surely commanded particular offerings. But there was a deeper meaning: “I desire to do your will, O my God.” The yielded thankful heart would lead to a life of worship and service. David, as we know, could only aspire to such total devotion. It would remain for another to fulfill the true and total requirements of the law. 
 
What Might This Psalm Have Meant to Jesus?
 
Hebrews 10 places this psalm directly on Jesus’ lips! The setting is “when Christ came into the world” (vs. 5). Overall, this refers to the incarnation. This doing of his Father’s will is the whole journey of the Son of God as the man Jesus. He came as the second Adam, the beginning of a new human race. He came to live from the heart a perfect obedience expressed in giving away his life in love, all the way to his death.
 
In terms of a particular moment, I love to think of Jesus’ praying Psalm 40 as his cousin John baptizes him in the Jordan River. This is the hour of Christ’s public debut into his mission and ministry.
 
In the waters of the Jordan, Jesus submits to a sinners’ baptism, even though personally he has no sin. But as John pours water upon him, Jesus repents on our behalf. In baptism, he makes our sins his own and gives us the first look at what his ministry will be about. He will go about taking to himself and healing our diseases and brokenness, our afflictions and oppressions. Then at the last, he will bear the sins of the world upon the cross, being baptized in blood (Mark 10:39).
 
The ESV translates Psalm 40:6 as “you have given me an open ear,” meaning a receptivity to listening to the will and guidance of his Father. When Hebrews quotes this psalm, however, it uses the Greek translation of the Old Testament as “a body you have prepared for me” (Hebrews 10:5). That gives us a greater sense of how Jesus lived his whole flesh and blood life as a moment-by-moment sacrifice of obedience on our behalf. He joyfully affirms, “For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me” (John 6:38). 
 
Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan inaugurates the great promise of the new covenant made in Jeremiah 31:33. The LORD declares, “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.” Jesus is the only man who could truly say and live out, “I desire to do your will, O my God.” He reversed our first parents’ choice to do their own will. Jesus was fearfully and wonderfully made as the new Adam who offers himself completely in faithful love to his Father. 
 
So he could proclaim the “glad news of deliverance to the great congregation” he would gather. His first words recorded in Mark’s gospel declare, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15).
 
Praying with Jesus
 
Lord Jesus, you came all the way down to us!
You left the harmony of heaven
For the cacophony of my rebel heart. 
You went under the waters 
Like a filthy sinner needing to be cleansed.
You consecrated yourself to your Father’s mission.
You offered yourself completely.
You lived as the first and only human
Who desired your Father’s will 
From the depths of your heart.
You are the new covenant
In which desire to live for God
Is written in the very heart of a new humanity.
 
You brought this news to the great congregation
Of men, women and children everywhere. 
Your joy in seeking your Father wholeheartedly
Overflows to us.
I love your salvation.
This day, I join my voice to yours, as forever
You say, with us and for us,
Great is the LORD!
 
 

 

Posted in: Lent

Day 3

Posted on: February 20, 2024
by: Gerrit Dawson, Senior Pastor
DAY 3  TUESDAY
The Joy of Jesus
 
Imagine standing with Jesus, right next to him, in prayer to his Father. Read this passage of praise aloud. As you do so, consider that you are praying along with Jesus, your two voices becoming one as you bless God.  
 
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
   and all that is within me,
   bless his holy name!
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
   and forget not all his benefits,
who forgives all your iniquity
   who heals all your diseases, 
who redeems your life from the pit,
   who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
who satisfies you with good
   so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. (Psalm 103:1-5)
 
Psalm 104:1-2, 19-24; 27-31
 
Bless the LORD, O my soul!
   O LORD my God, you are very great!
You are clothed with splendor and majesty,
   covering yourself with light as with a garment,
   stretching out the heavens like a tent. . . . 
He made the moon to mark the seasons;
   the sun knows its time for setting.
You make darkness, and it is night,
   when all the beasts of the forest creep about.
The young lions roar for their prey,
   seeking their food from God.
When the sun rises, they steal away
   and lie down in their dens.
Man goes out to his work
   and to his labor until the evening.
 
O LORD, how manifold are your works!
   In wisdom have you made them all;
   the earth is full of your creatures. . . .
 
These all look to you,
   to give them their food in due season. . . .
 
When you give it to them, they gather it up;
   when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.
When you hide your face, they are dismayed;
   when you take away their breath, they die
   and return to their dust.
When you send forth your Spirit, they are created,
   and you renew the face of the ground.
 
May the glory of the LORD endure forever;
may the LORD rejoice in his works.
 
What Is This Psalm About?   
 
Psalm 104 blesses the LORD I AM for the very rhythms of life on the earth. The psalmist rejoices that, as Calvin would comment centuries later, “[T]he whole world is a theatre for the display of the divine goodness, wisdom, justice, and power” (Commentary on Psalm 104). Similarly, the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins would write, “The world is charged with the grandeur of God” (“God’s Grandeur”). When we look at creation against the backdrop of the Creator’s goodness, order and plan, even the mundane thrills us. So the prophet declares, “He who made the Pleiades and Orion, and turns deep darkness into the morning and darkens the day into night, who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out on the surface of the earth, the LORD is his name” (Amos 5:8).
 
God ordered the cosmos with reliable laws, and faith understands that God’s steadfast love undergirds this constancy. Consequently, what seems routine sparkles as extraordinary. Wonder is everywhere: Days and seasons. Earth and sky. Birth and death. Growth and decay. Work and rest. Animals nocturnal and diurnal. Evergreens and leaf-droppers. Rainy seasons and dry. Cold and heat. The very dance of electrons to the slow inexorable glacier flow sing forth the beauty of the Creator. Thomas Chisholm’s beloved hymn “Great is Thy Faithfulness” encapsulates this lovely theme of Psalm 104: “Summer and winter and seedtime and harvest, / Suns, moons and stars in their courses above / Join with all nature in manifold witness / to thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.” 
 
What Might This Psalm Have Meant to Jesus?
 
Paul writes of the Son of God that “by him all things were created in heaven and on earth . . . all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:6-17). Paul also tells us that “when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman” (Galatians 4:4), and “he emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:7). The eternal Son took up a real humanity. As Jesus, he made his way as we do. He had to develop, study, ask questions, reason, work, eat, wash, rest, deepen and explore. Jesus as a human had to become aware of what he had known from eternity as the Son of God—he is his Father’s unique Son.
As a child, Jesus encountered the world as children do—just receiving what is as it is. Spilled milk is not first a mess, but something wet and cool to put a hand in. A dog slurp is first something that makes you laugh, only later something that makes you sticky. He experienced and loved all the ordinary moments of regular days. 
 
In his ministry, Jesus would have to undertake the grim business of engaging evil. He would have to fight against illness, arrogance, oppression, and every manner of brokenness. But I don’t believe he ever lost the joy of life that he experienced as a child. 
 
As we consider his teaching, we see Jesus’ awareness and appreciation of daily life. There is abundant evidence in his illustrations that Jesus had been shaped by Psalm 104 in his prayers:  
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. (Matthew 6:28b-29)
 
Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. (Matthew 10:29)The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. (Mark 4:26-27)
 
When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ (Matthew 16:2-3)
Jesus loves the beautiful adornment of flowers and the birds on the wing. He knows his Father has his eye on the sparrow. He acknowledges the mystery of how seeds sprout and plants grow. He watches the signs of weather and lives close to the change of seasons and the daily sunrise and nightfall. 
 
As Jesus prays Psalm 104, we can imagine his deep contemplation. The song turns from lyrically naming aspects of creation to exploring the very mystery of living and dying. The Hebrew word for “breath,” “wind” and “spirit” is the same. Thus, animals live by the breath, or Spirit, of God. The breath of God gives the breath of life. When that Spirit is withdrawn, creatures perish. We, like the animals, made of dust, rise from the earth and return to it in due time, under the sovereignty of God.
 
Jesus discerns the hope that follows the psalm’s lines about death. Seemingly out of order, we read how God sends forth his Spirit, his divine breath, to quicken these creatures who have perished. But the Hebrew word can mean “revive” as well as “create.” This gives a sense of resurrection. “[A]nd you renew the face of the earth.” As the years go by and Jesus considers the cross that will be before him, how precious would the joyful hope of this psalm be to him!
 
Praying with Jesus
 
You encountered the world from within a real human life.
I love to think of your joy in being alive,
In seeing order, rhythm, design everywhere.
Mary and Joseph told you of the Creator.
So you received everything as a gift from his hand. 
 
As a child, you felt 
The vastness of the world,
The power of the waves,
The depths of the waters
And the height of the hills.
 
You saw animals born and die.
You saw the harvest joy
And the heartbreak of crops that failed.
 
You anticipated the routine of daily meals,
And regular prayers,
Sabbath rest and hours when toil demanded.
You knew cool nights and hot days.
 
Always you grew in knowing your Father
As the source and goal, the originator and finisher.
All of this revealed his beauty to you.
With you, Jesus, 
I will sing to your Father as long as I live;
I will sing praise to my God and your God,
For the beauty of the earth,
With you, Jesus, I rejoice in the LORD,
Your Father and mine. 
 

 

Posted in: Lent

Day 2

Posted on: February 19, 2024
by: Gerrit Dawson, Senior Pastor
DAY 2  MONDAY
At the Temple: One Thing I Have Asked
 
Imagine standing with Jesus, right next to him, in prayer to his Father. Read this passage of praise aloud. As you do so, consider that you are praying along with Jesus, your two voices becoming one as you bless God.  
 
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
   and all that is within me,
   bless his holy name!
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
   and forget not all his benefits,
who forgives all your iniquity
   who heals all your diseases, 
who redeems your life from the pit,
   who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
who satisfies you with good
   so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. (Psalm 103:1-5)
 
 
Psalm 27:4-10
 
One thing have I asked of the LORD,
   that will I seek after:
that I may dwell in the house of the LORD
   all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD
   and to inquire in his temple.
For he will hide me in his shelter
   in the day of trouble;
he will conceal me under the cover of his tent;
   he will lift me high upon a rock.
 
And now my head shall be lifted up
   above my enemies all around me,
and I will offer in his tent
   sacrifices with shouts of joy;
I will sing and make melody to the LORD.
Hear, O LORD, when I cry aloud;
   be gracious to me and answer me!
You have said, “Seek my face.”
My heart says to you,
   “Your face, LORD, do I seek.”
   Hide not your face from me.
Turn not your servant away in anger,
   O you who have been my help.
Cast me not off; forsake me not,
   O God of my salvation!
For my father and my mother have forsaken me,
   but the LORD will take me in.
 
What Is This Psalm About?
 
In Psalm 27, virulent enemies press David so hard that he feels like they want “to eat up my flesh” (27:2). He counters his anxiety by praising the LORD, describing in prayer a cascade of God’s qualities. The LORD is his light, his salvation, his rock and his refuge. In times of trouble, the LORD both conceals David from his enemies and lifts him high above them. The reality of God reduces the threat of any foe.
David also understands that when we are restless with worry, it is hard to rest in God. When we thrash about with anxiety over others’ hostility, we struggle to release ourselves into God’s peaceful protection. David knows he needs to go to a place where others who trust in the LORD lift up praises and make their needs known. He seeks a “thin place” where the distance between heaven and earth shrinks. God who is everywhere chose to make himself especially known in his “house,” the place of worship where the Ark of the Covenant resided, where sacrifices of atonement and thanks could be made, where songs of faith rose entwined with cries of need. 
 
So David realizes that the deepest desire of his heart is to experience the presence of the LORD who had called him as his son and servant. The Holy Spirit placed in David an impulse to seek the face, the experiential presence, of God. He knows this is the quest of his life. The road of that journey is paved with praise. Such worship puts all of life in perspective. When enemies pursue, or even the closest relatives disappoint, the LORD sustains with steadfast love. 
 
What Might This Psalm Have Meant to Jesus?
 
In Luke 2:41-51, the author records one episode from Jesus’ boyhood. Jesus’ family takes him to Jerusalem for the sacred festival of Passover. At 12, Jesus is just a year from his bar mitzvah, after which he would be considered a responsible adult. In the courts of the great temple, teachers of the Scriptures gather to discuss, expound and debate the Word of God while others listen. There Jesus realizes his greatest passion: to encounter God through his Word.
 
From the beginning, Jesus had an extraordinary aptitude for Scripture. I’m sure he loved hearing his rabbi teach every Sabbath. I know Jesus relished the Torah classes held for the boys of his town. But now at the temple, hearing the greatest teachers, spiritual fire blazes in his heart, mind and soul. He yearns to know the LORD more. He knows that his life’s work will be to speak of God from his Word to any who will listen. 
 
In the temple, where the LORD made his name to dwell, Jesus can barely contain his desire to behold the beauty, the full-of-wonder delightfulness of God to whom he feels so close. How this psalm resounds in his soul! “My heart says to you, ‘Your face, LORD, do I seek’” (Psalm 27:8). And suddenly this boy dares to interact with the teachers, asking and answering questions. He loses all track of time. This is what he does day after day, even when his family has started back for Nazareth.
 
When his parents, worried sick, double back to find him, Jesus can only reply, “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49). Jesus realizes that the great God of the glorious Scriptures discussed at the temple is his personal father. He is coming into the truth of his manhood. As close as he has been to his earthly parents, now he knows he must live for his heavenly Father. In this sense, he can pray with David, “My father and mother have forsaken me, but the LORD [my Father!] will take me in.”
 
Praying with Jesus
 
Lord Jesus, I thrill to imagine
You at the temple that Passover,
Awakening to your purpose,
Near breathless with deepest desire.
 
You sought the face of your Father.
Yearning awoke in you to be more and more in his presence. 
In the temple, you tasted the sweetness of the Word.
Your soul blazed with ardor to know your Father intimately,
To shout with joy as you offered yourself to do his will. 
 
You answered the Spirit’s prompting in you.
You expressed earnestly your greatest fear as you asked
That the Father would never hide his face from you.
 
You wanted what no human had received before, 
A direct and intimate apprehension of God,
Whom you loved though you had not seen him,
For whom you thirsted, whom you wanted more than anything. 
 
And today as I pray, I’m astonished
That what you sought, you now give to me.
For you are the face of God in a human face!
You are the Father’s presence in skin and bone.
The glory of God shines in your face
Which is ever turned toward me in love.
 
Open my eyes that I might see
How what you most desired on earth,
What you fought for, bled for, died for,
Has been freely given to me.
 

 

Posted in: Lent

Day 1

Posted on: February 18, 2024
by: Gerrit Dawson, Senior Pastor

WEEK 1 INTRODUCTION

BEHOLD, I HAVE COME!

John Everett Millais. Christ in the House of His Parents. 1849-50, Tate Gallery, London.

We’re given very little specific information about Jesus’ first thirty years, but those decades formed what Jesus would become in his ministry. We know he was miraculously conceived by the Holy Spirit. His family fled to Egypt shortly after his birth because jealous King Herod sought his life. His stepfather Joseph worked as a carpenter. Like any good Jewish boy, Jesus would have learned his father’s trade. Jesus learned to relate to his family and neighbors. He studied the Scriptures. He internalized the Jewish forms of worship. He noticed seasons, trees, and animals. Jesus increased in awareness of his heavenly Father and their unique relationship. All this prepared him to burst onto the public scene at his baptism. 
 
Preparing for this week, we can spend a few moments with John Everett Millais’ 1850 painting With Christ in the House of His Parents. This intimate domestic scene is rich with signs of what is to come. The young Jesus has pierced his hand on a protruding nail in Joseph’s workshop. Mary comforts him even as Joseph tenderly examines the wound. We cannot help but think of the coming cross, especially as we note the larger nail in Joseph’s hand. His cousin John brings a bowl of water foreshadowing his role as the baptizer. Even more symbolism can be discovered in articles about this painting.
 
DAY 1  SUNDAY
The Child Jesus Asks, “Who Am I?”
 
Imagine standing with Jesus, right next to him, in prayer to his Father. Read this passage of praise aloud. As you do so, consider that you are praying along with Jesus, your two voices becoming one as you bless God.  
 
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
   and all that is within me,
   bless his holy name!
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
   and forget not all his benefits,
who forgives all your iniquity
   who heals all your diseases, 
who redeems your life from the pit,
   who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
who satisfies you with good
   so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. (Psalm 103:1-5)
 
 
Psalm 139:1-2, 13-18  
 
O LORD, you have searched me and known me!
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
   you discern my thoughts from afar. . . .
 
For you formed my inward parts;
   you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
   my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
   when I was being made in secret,
   intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
     the days that were formed for me,
     when as yet there was none of them.
 
How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
   How vast is the sum of them!
If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
   I awake, and I am still with you.
 
What Is This Psalm About?
 
In this psalm, David contemplates the wonder that the LORD of all knows him personally and intimately. God perceives his past and his future. God beholds him inside and out. In the LORD’s awareness, there can be no gap between what David presents and who he really is. God beholds him entirely. He knows him completely.
 
The heart of this song can be expressed in a simple but profound statement: “I am thought, therefore I am.” Why do I exist? Because God thought of me! And he keeps thinking of me. By his very regard for me, I stay alive. The one whose name is “I Am,” the Triune God who is pure, uncreated being imagined me. Then he created me. He gave me a real existence. So I can joyfully say, “I am! I am me! I live!” But not because I could ever have made myself. Thinking, choosing and doing are all gifts from God. 
 
This psalm shows me that the more I acknowledge the Creator, the more I appreciate the mystery of being alive. My praise of the Maker opens me to joyful gratitude. I rejoice, without pride, in my very life. For all glory goes to the One who conceived me in eternity and then enabled my mother to bring me into this world. I am thought—by God. Therefore, I exist as the particular person I am. Even now, as I draw the next breath, I realize that God maintains my life by his constant thought and care.
 
What Might This Psalm Have Meant to Jesus?
 
We know very little of Jesus’ life before his ministry began, and what information we have is precious. We know that in Nazareth “the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom. And the favor of God was upon him” (Luke 2:40). We can well imagine that Psalm 139 was as significant for Jesus as it has ever been for young people.
 
Jesus did not come out of Mary’s womb as a fully formed little man the way some art shows! Jesus grew up the way we do. That means he had to learn. Like every baby, Jesus learned to distinguish people. He knew the loving embrace of his nursing mother. It was different than the strong embrace of his carpenter father. Jesus could tell the smooth skin of Mary’s cheek from the rough beard of Joseph. 
 
As Jesus realized more and more that he was his own, separate person, he may have wondered, as many children do, where he was before he was here with his parents. Lying on his bed at night, before he fell asleep, he may have looked at his hands in the dim light wondering at how he could just think of moving his fingers and they moved! Jesus may have tried to see how long he could hold his breath or noticed the dazzling brightness in his closed eyes when he rubbed them with his knuckles. Jesus would have puzzled over where he went when he was asleep. As Jesus encountered the death of animals, neighbors or even relatives, he would have wondered if they still lived somewhere else. And so where would he be one day when he died? 
 
All the while Jesus learned about the extraordinary ordinariness of being alive, this psalm would have set everything in the context of the God who made him. How  Jesus would have known the fresh joy each morning expressed in this psalm: “I awake, and I am still with you!” Psalm 139 gathered up every thanksgiving at meals, every bedtime prayer, and every song of the synagogue with the reality that Jesus lived because he was created by a God who every moment knew him and related to him. 
 
Praying with Jesus
 
Jesus the surge of living flowed through you!
You knew the child’s delight of discovery. 
I can see you laughing
As Mary blew on your tummy,
As Joseph tossed you into the air.
I love to think about how you first spoke.
Did your parents keep using the funny names
You gave to things?
 
I love to visualize you on your bed in the dark,
Or in the early morning before the house stirred,
Speaking to your toys, making up little stories.
I love to see you walking outside,
Holding a hand, feeling the sun, 
Breathing in the scent of home.
 
I love to ponder how the awareness 
Of your heavenly Father grew year by year,
To imagine you hearing this psalm and
Realizing, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” 
 
What love of life you surely had,
How precious were those days at home,
Before the weight of the world bore down 
Upon the shoulders of your soul. 
 
Posted in: Lent

Introduction

Posted on: February 17, 2024
by: Gerrit Dawson, Senior Pastor
What if we could pray with Jesus, not just to him about our concerns? What would happen if we stood next to Jesus, offering up the same prayers he made to his Father? What if we joined Jesus in the events of his life, then pressed close to him by sharing in his emotions? What if we spent our prayer time being engaged about what mattered in Christ’s life?
 
I can tell you what happens to me when I do this. I feel his heart forming more inside my heart. I become energized by the urgency of his mission. Most of all, I grow to love Jesus more than ever. And adoring him brings me so much: Peace. Passion. Hope. Wonder. 
 
As it turns out, getting inside Jesus’ prayer life lights up our prayers. Tucking up close to his heartbeat in the events of his life transforms our hearts. The closer we draw to him, the more Jesus gives life to us.
 
But how? Is there not an impossible gap between Jesus and me? Aren’t the events of his life lost in the past? We don’t know what he prayed, so how can we join him? I know. It sounds presumptuous and not a little crazy.
 
But there is a bridge, a reliable, compelling, available bridge built of two interconnected parts: the Psalms and the Gospels. They fit together so we can be joined to Jesus.
The Psalms 
 
For centuries, the Book of Psalms, also known as the Psalter, has been the heartbeat of Jewish and Christian worship. The people of the LORD have offered up psalms as individuals and as a community of believers. Mostly written by the poet-king David, this collection of 150 poems runs the whole range of human experience. From joy to depression, from guilt to release, from anxiety to peace, from envy to gratitude, psalms express the kaleidoscope of our emotions. Nearly all the psalms are prayers, so when we pray the psalms, our human feelings get processed before the LORD. Through the Psalms, we tell God about our situations and the emotions that arise from these circumstances. We consider the cause of our circumstances, and we ask our Creator for specific help, sometimes urgently. 
 
Jesus knew the Psalms by heart. He prayed them, taught from them, quoted from them and understood himself to be the key that unlocks their deepest meaning. They are Christ’s prayerbook. And only he could pray them completely. 
 
The Gospels
 
Jesus himself withdrew from the earth forty days after his resurrection. But by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he left us the record of what we need to know about what he did and said. The Gospels recount historical events in Jesus’ life, but Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are not mere reports. Something else happens when we read that record in reliance on the Holy Spirit. These events from two thousand years ago become charged with present power. We meet the Jesus who lived then right now. These stories have immediate potency. 
 
Building a Bridge
 
How can we link the Psalms and the Gospels? First of all, the authors of the Gospels give us several concrete instances where particular psalms intersect with the events of Jesus’ life. For example, we already know that Jesus prayed Psalm 22 from the cross. We’re very sure Jesus prayed Psalm 116 at the Last Supper. We know that people shouted lines from Psalm 118 as Jesus entered Jerusalem. We know that Jesus taught how Psalm 110 relates to himself. 
Even without specific references such as these, we can see the bridge being built elsewhere in the Gospels. The Spirit inspired the authors of the Psalms not only in their sacred responses to their immediate circumstances but also in the penning of prayers that Jesus would offer to his Father throughout his life, especially during Passion Week. In effect, the psalmists composed lyrics for Jesus’ life. Making additional links between specific psalms and Jesus’ life events will require some imagination—not wild speculation, but consecrated connection. 
 
What if we consider which particular psalms fit with particular events of Jesus’ life given in the Gospels and pray specific psalms right into those events? What if we imagine Jesus praying that psalm as expressive of the meaning of that event? We know Jesus knew and prayed all the Psalms, and we know every event recorded in the Gospels happened. So the experiment this Lent is to put the two together in contemplation and prayer. We pray the psalms with Jesus in the context of his experiences because, in effect, the Psalms are the soundtrack of Jesus’ life.
 
That is what I’m inviting you to try this Lent—to pray prayers Jesus prayed with Jesus as we enter the events of his life. Using consecrated imagination, we can draw close to him to understand more of his inner life and driving passion. We have forty-two events and forty-two psalms to link together. I have found making these connections to be life-changing, and I pray you will too.  
 
A Note On the Psalms as Songs
 
Music can lift our spirits or release our sadness. We love the lyrics of songs because they express what we feel but may not have the words to say. The specific situation described by the songwriter doesn’t limit the song’s ability to connect across regions, ages, and even cultures. 
 
For instance, not many people have actually found themselves “standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona.” But millions have connected for half a century to the relational difficulties in the Eagles’ “Take It Easy.” Also, songs can amplify familiar feelings so we can hear more clearly what we’re experiencing. Bono of U2 sings how he’s got “music to exaggerate my pain and give it a name.” A song in word or tune may be more dramatic than my life in a particular moment. But that very exaggeration helps me understand what I’m experiencing on a smaller scale. We hitch our feelings to the song and feel understood.
 
Written to be sung by individuals and in corporate worship and celebration, the Psalms are not only a prayerbook, they are a songbook as well.
 
Curiously, God did not preserve for us any of the tunes to which these psalms were set. Moreover, the Hebrew poetry of the psalms does not use rhyme. However, the lack of melody and rhyme makes the psalms more translatable, relatable and universal. Cultures change constantly, but human emotions and spiritual experiences stay remarkably the same through time and space, and the psalms continue to cross over countries, oceans, and even centuries.
 
TWENTY MINUTES A DAY
 
Psalm 103 Every Day: Don’t Skip This!
 
I invite you to pray aloud every day an excerpt from Psalm 103. Doing this in itself is spiritually formative. But here’s the twist. As you get ready to pray, imagine standing with Jesus. See Jesus make ready to bless his Father through this ancient psalm. Then say it with him. Encourage him in his praise as you say it aloud with Jesus. 
 
Daily Psalm  
 
Each day during this Lenten season, we’ll read a selection from a psalm. Take your time. You might want to read it once silently and once aloud. Notice where you identify with the feelings expressed. Listen for the “nibbles” that tug at you. Consider what you like about this selection or even what you don’t like.
 
What Is This Psalm About?
 
I will present a couple of paragraphs just to set the context of the day’s psalm. I’ll highlight for you some particular insights that help to unlock its meaning.
 
What Might This Psalm Have Meant to Jesus?
 
Here’s where we’ll make a link between a Jesus-event and the psalm. We’ll be moving consecutively through the life of Jesus, from his childhood through his ministry and passion to his ascension. I’ll be bringing in connections to other Scriptures as well. We’ll see how these prayers would have given Jesus lyrics, or content, for praying about the meaning of the event.
 
Praying with Jesus
 
This is where we will strive to internalize the link between events of Jesus’ life and psalms he might have prayed. I’ve offered words through which you can press close to Jesus as you encounter him in both the gospel story and the psalm. Of course, I encourage you to add your own prayers! 
 
So as we pray psalms throughout Lent, we will find connections with our own lives. Moreover, we will find links to Jesus’ inner feelings. We will pray with Jesus and draw close to him in this sacred season.
 
Acknowledgments
 
I’m so thankful to work with Katie Robinson on this our 13th Lenten guide to prayer! She’s the layout master! I’m very grateful to welcome back Dr. Jean Rohloff as editor. She’s great at making clear and smooth what is murky and rough. 
 
There are many great books on the psalms. I want to acknowledge just a few seminal sources referenced in these pages. (Other sources used will have footnotes in the text.) 
 
Guite, Malcolm. David’s Crown: Sounding the Psalms. Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2021.
 
Reardon, Patrick Henry. Christ in the Psalms. Chesterton, IN: Ancient Faith Publishing, 2000.
 
Ross, Allen P. Ross. A Commentary on the Psalms, Vol. 1-3. Grand Rapids: Kregel Academic, 2016.*
 
*Professor Ross’ work has been more valuable to me than I can say. His scholarship and insights are everywhere in these pages.
 
And, of course, how can I ever adequately render my joyful gratitude that I have the privilege of pastoring such a congregation as you? Your love for the Word who is Jesus and the Word which is written fills me with energy and a passion to go deeper into Christ with you. This is a book I’ve wanted to write for a decade, and now, at last, we get to pray psalms with Jesus together!
 
With you in Christ,
Gerrit
Lent, 2024
 
Posted in: Lent

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