Sunday Notes, April 10, 2011
Dear folks,
How do we handle sorrow? This Sunday we will celebrate the Lord’s Supper in obedience to Christ’s command to “Do this in remembrance of Me.” We are walking with Jesus and His disciples as they have now left Jerusalem and have entered a private garden known as the “Wine Press” on the Mount of Olives. Jesus needs time to pray alone to His Father to see if there is any other way to save sinful people apart from the Cross. Such was the terrible foreboding He had of the coming agony. We are on holy ground here in Matthew 26:36-46.
I want us to read Isaiah 53:1-12 to understand better “the Man of Sorrows” who was acquainted with grief. Also consider the insight provided by Hebrews 5:6-10 of what was happening as Jesus made this petition to His Father. Psalm 42 is a perfect background for a person in extreme distress.
Jesus told His disciples to “watch and pray that you enter not into temptation”, in other words by being vigilant and praying we can stop the temptation before it starts. We all struggle with temptation, but how do we resist this powerful pull toward evil? Temptation comes from our own sin nature, the circumstances of living in a fallen world and the subtle malicious plans of the devil, the enemy of our soul. We must be diligent in our pilgrimage time on the earth, thinking within the Biblical reality, and not the deceptions and lies of the world which would dismiss the Satanic person as a mythological figure of the Dark Ages. . Our coming death should focus our minds on the issues of our life. Our fight is not against people, but the spiritual forces of darkness that draw us toward greed, lust, gluttony, pride, wrath, envy, and sloth – the seven deadly sins.
So you see the suffering and sorrow our Lord experienced in the garden came partly from His drawing back from having to endure the punishment our sins deserve. Truly He was the sin bearer, the Lamb taking away the sins of the world. He bore our misery and healed our diseases.
See you Sunday,
Lee
