I am quite floored to see how quickly we human beings can learn. I am also amazed at the gifts God has given to some people to teach certain and varied ages of children and adults (I am thinking about those who teach my daughter at the child development facility she attends). Catechism has been a means of training children for hundreds of years. The child learns the questions and the answers the pattern in which the series of questions and answers come. Having been given the framework, they spend their lives learning more fully what the material means. I am absolutely biased about the little girl who is recorded below - she’s my 21 month old daughter. However, in working with all ages of children in my pastoral career, I have found children giving their catechism answers to be magical. Enjoy.

By way of translation:

• “Dagh” = God.
• “Heban” = Heaven.
• “Shusha” = Spirit.

My wife and I are reading through a most contemplation evoking paper presently on the Eucharist that has sparked a great wonder and awe of God in me. Traditionally, we have thought of God as being of infinitely greater and altogether different kind of being from which we have our being analogously. Even so, one of my favorite theologians begins his volume on the Doctrine of God:

Mystery is the lifeblood of dogmatics. To be sure, the term “mystery” ( μυστηριον) in Scripture does not mean an abstract supernatural truth in the Roman Catholic sense. Yet Scripture is equally far removed from the idea that believers can grasp the revealed mysteries in a scientific sense. In truth, the knowledge that God has revealed of himself in nature and Scripture far surpasses human imagination and understanding. In that sense it is all mystery with which the science of dogmatics is concerned, for it does not deal with finite creatures, but from beginning to end looks past all creatures and focuses on the eternal and infinite One himself.¹

For newer generations to theology, the term ‘dogmatics’ simply means ‘systematic theology’. Systematic theology then serves its greatest purpose when it exposes its very limitation and inability to circumscribe God, compelling us to a greater sense of worship in the face of wonder and mystery.

God’s Givenness in Redemptive History

God’s people have believed for about 3,500 years that God was the one who gives himself to his people. He confined himself to a pillar of fire in the desert of Sinai to lead his people out of Egypt. The infinite God took up residence in a structure built by human hands(!), in order to demonstrate his givenness to us.

4But that same night the word of the Lord came to Nathan, 5“Go and tell my servant David, ‘Thus says the Lord: Would you build me a house to dwell in? 6I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent for my dwelling. (2 Samuel 7:4-6, ESV)

The question here is ironic. David out of good intention wants God to “live” in a better place. God reminds him that he has chosen to limit himself to a tent. In asking the question, the Lord is drawing the reader towards his givenness and help us to see his utter humility, to limit himself in ways that we can perceive and with which we may relate.

So when the Lord takes on flesh and makes his dwelling among us (literally tabernacles among us in John 1:14, looking back to the tent in the above reference;), we find the apex of his givenness to us. He is not our God at a distance, but has taken on humanity that we might take on godliness.

Incarnation as Paradigm of Givenness

Therefore, the Incarnation of God in the person of Jesus of Nazareth is one of the greatest if not the greatest mysteries in all of creation. The Incarnation is a double-sided confrontation. First, exposes us, who are poor beyond measure, leading us to mourn our poverty to be made meek that we hunger and thirst for righteousness that we ourselves do not have.

Second, in our poverty we find that God throwing aside the glory of heaven, limited himself to a human being, in time, in space, in life and death and in so doing redefines all things created. In other words, God the Son made himself poor to mourn with us, demonstrating truly meek submission to the Father, whose righteousness he hungered and thirsted after to no end.

The Incarnation as the apex of God’s givenness to us shows us with the greatest alacrity that he is not a God that is far off. Nor is he a God who merely wants to make our lives more comfortable. No, the God of heaven and earth is the God who is given, who has through out all history, both before and after the Fall of Humanity into sin sought to give himself in the deepest fellowship to us. This at once underscores the compassion of our God and his passion for his people, while at the same time exposes the insanity of rejecting the means by which he gives himself to us not just 2,009 years ago (being born c.a. 2 BC). No, God has pledged himself to his church as an eternal bridegroom to be given to us eternally, apart from time, always.

Givenness in the Meantime

We now live in the time between when this givenness is initiated and when it is consummated. We live in a time in which our eternal and incarnate bridegroom has gone to prepare a place for us in eternity, apart from time, always. We now wait as the betrothed.

He has not left us or abandoned us in this time in between. He has allowed himself to be revealed through human, created, finite language in the Bible, both preached and read. He indwells us with his Spirit, while the Son intercedes for us to the Father and helps us to pray acceptably (Romans 8). He gives himself to us in the baptism, promising to attend the baptism with his Spirit. He allows himself to be communicated in the Lord’s Table, the Eucharist, in which believers feed upon Christ, who is our life (John 1:4):

32Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. 33For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” 34They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” 35Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. (John 6:32-35, ESV)

God’s Eternal Givenness

The written Word of God, both read but especially preached now, directs us to the moment (if we can employ such a temporally loaded term as ‘moment’) when we will be with the Word of God, Jesus Christ, the Son of God for eternity. It compels us towards our eschatological destiny in Christ, who we are taught will come again to give himself to us, and us to him, completely.

Prayer to the Lord is mediated now and quite imperfect on our part; nevertheless, we may come before the throne of grace boldly (though not arrogantly), on account of God’s givenness in Christ, who now as a human being (also fully God) intercedes for us to the Father. We look to the time when our prayers are unhindered perfect interpersonal connection with the Lord:

Prayer is beyond any question the highest activity of the human soul. Man is at his greatest and highest when upon his knees he comes face to face with God.²

Where the Scriptures and prayer are verbal means by which God communicates to us himself; the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist are visible ways. Jesus is not the bread, nor is he the wine, but he does communicate himself to us through the means of bread and wine. He does give himself to us in promising to bind himself to us in baptism and gives us his life in when we receive the bread and wine.

We live in the time between that is both unique and at the same time very consonant with all history before us. God of heaven and earth has sought to and accomplished the reconciliation of the world in Christ Jesus, the God-Man, who perpetually gives himself to us as a picture of the eternal and unhindered givenness of God we will experience in glory.

He prays, but He hears prayer. He weeps, but He causes tears to cease. He is bruised and wounded, but He heals every disease and every infirmity. He is lifted up and nailed to the Tree, but by the Tree of Life He restores us, yes, He saved even the robber crucified with Him. He dies, but He gives life, and by His death destroys death. He is buried, but He rises again…³

² Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, 2 vols. [ Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979], 2:45

³ Gregory of Nazianzus. The Fourth Theological Oration XX, NPNF Vol. VII, P. 309.

³²And they went to a place called Gethsemane. And he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” ³³And he took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be greatly distressed and troubled. ³⁴And he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch.” ³⁵And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. ³⁶And he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” ³⁷And he came and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not watch one hour? ³⁸Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” ³⁹And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words. ⁴⁰And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy, and they did not know what to answer him. ⁴¹And he came the third time and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? It is enough; the hour has come. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. ⁴²Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.” (Mark 14:32-42)

I was talking with my friend Pastor Jeff Hatton of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Waco, Texas this evening at a Southwest Church Planting Network dinner. In an amazing pastoral moment, Jeff listened to far more of my story than I probably should have encumbered him with. I was telling him about how the Lord had burdened me to preach to myself in the midst of a year long fiery trial. In addition, I shared with Jeff that one of the initial passages that the Lord used to teach me about preaching first to myself was Mark 14:32-42, where our Lord suffers the agony of anticipation on the precipice of his execution. Our conversation was cut short as the events of the evening progressed and I did not have the opportunity to clarify what I had in mind by saying that I believed that Jesus seems to “redeem even suffering", which is what I am attempting to do here.

Most of us would very much like to know the future or at least certain parts of it if, we’re the types who enjoy a little suspense. We want to know about the hurricanes and tsunamis that would come and wash us out, hoping that we might avoid them. What we find in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14:32-42) is the one who designed the future, the one upon whom the future is predicated, embracing the uncertainty, the angst of suffering. We ourselves would never do such things – or at least most of us wouldn’t. We have come across people with terminal diseases that talk about gracious contentment in their dire state. Those kind of people used to make me very uncomfortable. I always wondered if it was merely an opiate that they had swallowed to help them cope with the unbearable.

What we find in the Garden of Gethsemane is immeasurably far from being an opiate. Just after the institution of the Lord’s Supper in the Upper Room, (i.e., Jesus’ celebration of Passover with his disciples), Jesus predicts Peter’s threefold denial of him. “Even though they fall away, I will not.” Peter echoed with an emphatic hollowness. Jesus then invites three of the disciples, the so-called ‘inner circle’, to join him in the Garden of Gethsemane. Where the first man, Adam, began in a garden and brought suffering upon the race through disobedience, Jesus the fulfillment of humanness would turn suffering inside out through his obedience as he moved from suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane to the Cross, then from the grave to resurrection glory.

Glory has never come through any other road than the the one that runs through Cross. Earlier James and John had sought glory apart from suffering: “Grant us to sit one at your left hand and one on your right hand in glory” (Mark 10:37). Jesus asks them if they can bear the cup of suffering that he would bear. “We are able,” they naively answered. “The failure to understand what it means to share in Jesus’ destiny and to be identified with his sufferings, rather than privileged status, appears to be the occasion for the isolation of the three from the others.” (Lane, 515) So we find that the three who had thought themselves able to circumvent the Cross – Peter, James and John – now found themselves invited to an object lesson on suffering. Jesus anticipated not only the nine-inch nails measured to inflict acute pain, but also the immeasurable wrath of God that would be poured out upon him for the sins of His people.

Two invitations are given in this passage. There is one to join Jesus in his suffering, to “sit here while I pray” and “remain here and watch” (Mark 14:32,34). The other is the one the disciples chose. It is the invitation to merely cope with a situation out of their ability to control. Three times Jesus asks them to join him by watching and praying for an hour (v 37,38). Three times we find that this ‘inner circle’ denied him, proving that indeed their spirit was willing but their flesh weak (v 38).

The disciples got through this hour in which Jesus was being overwhelmed. His soul was exceedingly sorrowful (v 34). Luke records that even after the Lord had been strengthened by an angel from heaven, "being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground." (Luke 22:44). Only the God-Man could be anxious to the point of sweating drops of blood for only the God-Man could understand what it meant to bear the infinite wrath of God for the sins of his people.

In Jesus we find one who demonstrates an ability to cry out to his God in the midst of great pain and anxiety. In the disciples we find those who merely cope. Coping is that invitation to skate around the outside of pain, to numb oneself and look for deliverance in something other than Christ. The disciples slept. Some of us will turn to the bottle, or television, or entertainment or over scheduling ourselves. These help us get by, so we think. All the while, in circumventing suffering, we fail to see that it is in Christ that suffering itself is redeemed. We fail to see that Christ is not waiting for us on the other side of our suffering in some kind of ethereal platonic heaven. No. He meets us in the midst of suffering in this world, even now.

It is the Cross that makes sense of suffering, giving us hope that suffering is not at the last analysis arbitrary. It often does not make sense and drives us to our wits end. What we find is that Christ is there too, redeeming the madness of suffering, bidding us to walk with him on the road to glory that at every point runs through the Cross.

Suffering will come. There is no avoiding it in this fallen world, for suffering is the reflux of sin’s corruption. For some it comes like the dripping of a leaky faucet, slowly eroding our strength and minds. For others it comes suddenly, unexpectedly, all at once, tragic. The Gospel of Jesus Christ does not lessen the pain or the grief, but it recasts it. And in recasting it, we find that suffering and its cousin death do no longer have the last word. “For if we have been united with [Christ] in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” (Romans 6:5, ESV)

We go where our Lord has gone. We walk the trail that our Lord has blazed to glory. This is not some kind of positivistic mantra of which Christians attempt to iteratively convince themselves. It is the fact of this life that suffering has been recast, that while the sharp edges do in fact cut and we do indeed bleed, we are reshaped and reformed into the likeness of Christ. The one who bled the ground red at Calvary for us, did not bleed to leave us to our own devices, coping our way through this life. Rather he, who has trampled down death by his own death, has sent the Comforter, the Spirit of Christ, to walk with us in victorious union.

Whether you are one who suffers much or little, you will suffer. Jesus, our High Priest at the right hand of God the Father Almighty intercedes for us. He does not intercede as a priest who empathizes through a distant imagination of what suffering must be like, but as one who knows what it is to suffer infinitely the wrath of God for our sins. It is this crucified and risen Christ who is himself our Eucharist, our thanksgiving and hope in suffering.

In reflecting on this morning’s sermon by Pete Deison at Park Cities Presbyterian Church, I began to consider the intricate relationship between prayer and righteousness. The memorable experience that this prayer was for Abraham seems to lend itself to encouraging us to pray and to reflect on the righteousness required for prayer.

It is notable in this passage that Abraham’s desire was that the city of Sodom be spared the wrath of God’s just destruction of it. Pastor Deison reminded us this morning that there were many in the city with whom Abraham had relation. He had conquered the five kings that had pillaged Sodom and returned all of its citizens belongings back to it. He had met with the king of Sodom and of course had family there, namely that of Lot. While Lot was influential in commerce and perhaps politics, he was not influential for the Lord.

Abraham prays boldly, most certainly. However, he stops short in his intercession. He stops at “if there are ten righteous people,” would you spare the city. God was most gracious to entertain Abraham’s prayer. In delighting to hear the prayer of his people, we find God preparing Abraham and his descendants for the reality of righteousness. Should Abraham had asked, “If there were one righteous person in the city, would you spare it, O Lord?” It seems plausible that God would have given the same reply, “If there is one, I will relent.” Nevertheless, the fate of Sodom would have been the same, for there were none righteous no, not even one (c.f., Romans 3:9-18).

So God answered Abraham’s prayer, but not the way Abraham had thought he intended. We often find ourselves praying boldly and yet without reference to the reality of the world as God has revealed it to us. God mercifully delivered Lot on account of His gracious promise to Abraham. On the basis of that promise, Abraham had prayed boldly and endured long in prayer for Lot (Genesis 19:29). So God delivered Lot, by means of Abraham’s intercession and “investment of love” to Lot.

Abraham’s intercession could not deliver the city, but it did deliver Lot, for the promise was to Abraham and his household, his family. This intercession ironically delivered Lot from the destruction of Sodom and in the subsequent portion of Genesis (19:30-38), Lot’s daughters defile their father by inebriating him in order to have sexual relations with him for the purpose of preserving his and their family line. It is at this point that we find Abraham’s intercession was at once efficacious in time and space and yet only imperfect and temporary. God had provided an intercessor for Lot in Abraham, and yet Abraham’s intercession looks forward to the Intercessor between God and Humanity, the Lord Jesus Christ, “the son of David, the son of Abraham” (Matthew 1:1). Christ intercedes eternally for his people, always and everywhere and never failing.

I would suggest to you the difference between Abraham and Christ is largely one of righteousness. Sodom is a picture that hits all too close to home. It is the City of Humanity, the city that is without any righteous citizenry. The Incarnation of God is the mystery in which the Lord in all his righteousness, makes himself poor, limiting himself to time and space in the person of Jesus of Nazareth — the singular righteous citizen who has ever lived. God would turn aside his wrath against sin for the righteousness of one man. That one man was not in Sodom, nor was he in Gomorrah. Where Abraham’s prayer of intercession failed to deliver the city, Christ’s righteous intercession remakes it, resulting in a New City. The Righteous One established the City of God and was exalted to reign over it. Instead of destroying the City of Humanity with wrath, it is invaded and transformed with Love, a far more potent offensive. The City of God is displacing and remaking the City of Humanity, making it truly human! God spared this city on the basis of one righteous man, Jesus Christ, who now perfectly and eternally intercedes for his citizens to whom he has bound himself with unbreakable bonds of love. It is on the basis of these unbreakable bonds of Love that we, as He, now intercede boldly in prayer before the throne of grace.

Recently my church has compiled a list of books that different pastors here felt were instructive on prayer or helped them to pray better. I have added a few of my own to the list and would love to hear from you, if you have suggestions. Please leave those suggestions as comments here from which all may benefit. Each listing is linked and will take you to the book on Amazon.com if you would like to purchase it:

• Answering God: The Psalms as Tools for Prayer
• So Amazing, So Divine: A Guide to Living Prayer
• Augustine on Prayer/No.171/04
• The Practice of the Presence of God: Writings and Conversations
• Purpose in Prayer: Library Edition
• Dangerous Duty of Delight: The Glorified God and the Satisfied Soul (LifeChange Books)
• A Journey to Victorious Praying: Finding Discipline and Delight in Your Prayer Life
• Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God’s Spirit Invades the Hearts of His People
• Fresh Faith: What Happens When Real Faith Ignites God’s People
• When God’s People Pray: Six Sessions on the Transforming Power of Prayer (Zondervangroupware(tm) Small Group Edition)
• The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions
• Effective Prayer
• Praying the Savior’s Way: Let Jesus’ Prayer Reshape Your Prayer Life
• Lord Teach Us: The Lord’s Prayer & the Christian Life
• Lord and His Prayer
• The Lord’s Prayer for Today (New for Today) (New for Today)
• The Transforming Power of Prayer: Deepening Your Friendship With God
• Prayers from The Confessions
• Pray With Your Eyes Open: Looking at God, Ourselves, and Our Prayers
• Prayer That Works
• Madame Jeanne Guyon: Experiencing Union with God Through Inner Prayer & the Way and Rescues of Union with God (Pure Gold Classics)
• A Call to Spiritual Reformation: Priorities from Paul and His Prayers
• Praying: Finding Our Way Through Duty to Delight
• Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion (2 Volume Set) [Book III]
• On Prayer: Conversation with God

I have put a selection of sermons on a new page entitled “Sermons” that you may listen to at your convenience.� I pray that Christ’s edifies and encourages you as much if not more than he has done in me in preaching these passages to myself.

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