Rebecca Writes

Do you have some boring spring cleaning or yard work to do? Download a good sermon, like The Ironies of the Cross from D. A. Carson, and listen while you work. Don’t worry that you can’t take notes, because I’ve already done that for you and posted them right here. And don’t think that you can skip the sermon because you’ve read my notes. The sermon has so much more, not the least of which is Don Carson’s dramatic reading of the scripture.

 
The text of this sermon is Matthew 27: 27-50.

The use of irony in narrative is a way of telling us what’s important in a story. In this account, Matthew gives us four ironies in the story of the cross.

The Four Ironies of the Cross

1. The man who is mocked as king is king. (verses 27-31)
   
   

   • The ironic statement in scripture:

     And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head and put a reed in his right hand. And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!”

     
     
   • How this statement is ironic: Those mocking think it’s false, but Matthew and his readers know that Jesus really is king, but a different sort of king with a different sort of kingdom. See Matthew 20:20ff, which includes this statement from Jesus:

     You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

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Last Sunday I posted a little bit of the story of William Cowper’s conversion as background for his hymn There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood. I’d like to be able to tell you that his conversion immediately solved all his problems, but it wasn’t so. Cowper continued to suffer bouts of mental illness throughout his life, and his conversion didn’t keep him from attempting suicide again, either. He’d come from a family with mental illness in it’s history, but beyond that, he’d been a sensitive child who had suffered greatly in his younger years. Little William’s mother died when he was six, and his father almost immediately shipped him off to boarding school, where he was, by his own account, treated cruelly. 

The assurance of his own salvation that he had at his conversion, when he saw “my pardon sealed in His blood,” did not continue without interruption. For long periods he would become convinced that ultimately he would be what he called a “castaway”; that is, in the end, Christ would say to him, “I never knew you.” These were the compulsive thoughts, I think, of a sick mind. After all, he truly believed that all those who trusted in Christ were surely saved, and that he, indeed, trusted in Christ. Yet he couldn’t rid himself of the idea that he was the one and only exception to the rule, the only person who ever lived who would trust in Christ and still be rejected.

There’s no big happy ending to his story either. His very last words, in response to an offer of refreshment from the woman caring for him, were “What can it signify?” To say the least, it makes his story a puzzle for us.  His life is not a tale of triumph over adversity.

I knew someone who thought it was a mistake for the church to continue singing Cowper’s hymns, since, as they explained, he’d rejected Christ. I don’t think there’s really any evidence that he rejected Christ, just that he didn’t find the long term peace in Christ that we’ve come to expect from conversion. But what do we make of his hopelessness in the end? There are no easy answers to the questions raised for us by Cowper’s life .

I don’t know about you, but in a strange way, I find Cowper’s story full of hope. Here is a miserable man from whom we have received wonderful poetry and some of our most uplifting hymns. The products of his tormented mind bring hope and peace to mine. John Piper says the fact that so many people find encouragement in Cowper’s story should teach us that when we want to encourage others, we “must not limit ourselves to success stories.”¹

In the end, Cowper’s life is proof of the truth of one of his own hymns.

God Moves in a Mysterious Way 

God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea
And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never failing skill
He treasures up His bright designs
And works His sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy and shall break
In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err
And scan His work in vain;
God is His own interpreter,
And He will make it plain.

The clouds of  Cowper’s hopelessness are big with blessings for us, and someday the puzzle of his life will be made plain when God interprets it for us.

¹ The Hidden Smile of God, John Piper, page 116.

• The Collect for the Third Sunday after Easter at Magic Statistics. 
• The King of Love My Shepherd Is at IMD 2.0.
• A Debtor to Mercy Alone at John Dekker’s Journal
• Out of the Depths at The Happy Wonderer
• Take My Life and Let it Be at Seasonings of the Heart
• The Family of God at joythruChrist.
• The Church’s One Foundation at Chez Kneel
  

 
Here’s what I wrote about the photo back when I first posted it: 

 I learned a little more about the photo from Ken Melvin:

I was wrong about the date of the photo, then. That means that not only was this picture taken taken shortly before my great grandfather died, it was taken only a few years before my grandpa Ira passed away in 1955. Bud and Hep, they were. I’m glad to know that, too.

The photo on the left is of my grandpa Ira Deckard alone. My mother’s label on the back says she thinks this was also snapped in Missouri. He was, I think, quite a bit younger in this photo than he was in the photo above. If you click for the larger view, you’ll see that Grandpa Ira is wearing long johns under his overalls, and that he has the same piano fingers that my mother inherited and passed down to my oldest daughter and my youngest son. Do you suppose any long lost cousins have piano fingers, too? 

One of the bonuses of blogging: You never know what you’ll learn or who you’ll meet. 

(Did you ever notice how narcissistic the word meme looks?)

I’ve been tagged by Carla (who seems to read just about the same number of novels that I do) for a book character meme. I read lots of novels as a child and on into young adulthood. Then I had to quit, because once I started a novel, I felt compelled to read it until I finished it. Straight through, that is, without breaks. You can imagine what kind of a mother I was while I was reading a novel. 

True story: One day I found myself sitting on a rocker that I’d pulled into the kitchen next to the fridge so I could reach over without looking up from my page, open the fridge door, grab a snack, and toss it at whatever child needed my attention. That’s when I realised that I needed to give up novels while my children were young. Once I got out of the habit of reading novels, I just never went back to them.

I did read a lot of novels to my children, so if my choices of book characters seem childish to you, now you know why. 

Name three characters (from books)…

• The mom in Little House on the Prairie. Okay, she was real, but I would like to meet her, so I could ask her how she did what she did.
  
• Aslan from The Chronicles of Narnia.  Who wouldn’t want to meet him?
  
• Eeyore.  I’d like to see if I could get him to crack a smile.
  

• When I was a girl, I wanted to be just like Caddie Woodlawn.
  
• Tigger.  It’d be fun to enjoy life moment to moment like Tigger does, although I’m not sure I’d want to be Tigger permanently.
• I’m coming up short here. If I think of anyone else, I’ll come back.
  

• Injun Joe from Tom Sawyer.
• When I was a little girl I was terrified of the wicked witch from The Wizard of Oz. The movie, not the book. I couldn’t bear to read the book if she’s in it, and I’ve never watched the movie again and never will.
• I’m going to have to come back later for this one, too.

The Fruit of Affliction in the Lives of John Bunyan, William Cowper, and David Brainerd by John Piper.

This is the second book in the series The Swans are Not Silent. Like the other books in the series, it contains three of Piper’s biographical sermons on historical Christians. In this case, those featured are John Bunyan, William Cowper and David Brainerd, three men who endured great suffering during their lives, and whose suffering bore fruit, both in their own times and onward through history to the present day. Piper’s purpose in telling the stories of these men’s lives and expounding on them is so that the story of

how they suffered, how they endured, and how it bore fruit … will inspire in [the reader] that same radical Christian life, God-centered worship, and Christ-exalting mission.

The first section is on the life of John Bunyan, best known for writing The Pilgrim’s Progress, one of the best-selling books of all times, although he wrote at least fifty-seven other books. Bunyan was a “brasyer” or tinker who became a nonconformist  preacher. He suffered in many ways throughout his life, including spending 12 years in jail away from his wife and children for refusing to stop preaching. Bunyan’s imprisonment drove him to God’s word. Piper quotes him:

I never had in all my life so great an inlet into th Word of God as now [in prison]. Those scriptures that I saw nothing in before were made in this place and state to shine upon me. Jesus Christ was never more real and apparent than now. 

Bunyan’s suffering and what he wrote about suffering in the life of the Christian can teach us much about following Christ in difficult times.

Next up is William Cowper, whose story I’ve written a little about already. Cowper suffered from depression and insanity, and yet left behind marvelous hymns of God’s goodness that we still sing two hundred years later. He is proof of the truth of one of his most famous hymns, God Moves in a Mysterious Way His Wonders to Perform.

And then there’s David Brainerd. If you followed along with one of my other blogs, David Brainerd’s Blog, you know a little of his story. Brainerd was a young missionary to the Indians in the 1700s who died at aged 29 of tuberculosis, following several years of illness. We remember him because of his journal, which has inspired many others to missionary service,  including William Carey and Jim Elliot.

 The lives of these three men, Piper says, are like pebbles dropped into a pond.

God has breathed on the waters and made their ripple into waves. And now the parched places of our lives are watered with the memories of sustaining grace. 

This is a wonderfully inspirational book. It’s not a long book, and I expected to finish it in a snap, but things didn’t work out that way because of the richness of the stories.  Don’t take this to mean that The Hidden Smile of God is a difficult book.  I’d call it an easy read, but one worth pondering as it’s read. 

We can learn much from the lives of these men and from the lessons Piper draws from their lives.  I plan to mention a few of these lessons during the next couple of weeks here, particularly as I post hymns from William Cowper in the Sunday’s Hymn posts, so if you’re interested, stay tuned, or better yet, read the book for yourself.

Someone tagged me for the book character meme yesterday or the day before.  I made a mental note of it and then forgot where I saw it. If you read this and you are the one who tagged me, will you remind me?  Pretty please?

And yes, you are right to conclude from these last two posts that I might be just a tad absentminded.  

The visible church is a society made up of all such as in all ages and places of the world do profess the true religion,[1] and of their children.[2] 

1. I Cor. 1:2

   To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours…

     I Cor. 12:13 

   For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. Rom. 15:9-12

   Rev. 7:9

   After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands…

   Psa. 2:8

   Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,
   and the ends of the earth your possession.

   Psa. 22:27-31 

   All the ends of the earth shall remember
   and turn to the Lord,
   and all the families of the nations
   shall worship before you.
   For kingship belongs to the Lord,
   and he rules over the nations.

   All the prosperous of the earth eat and worship;
   before him shall bow all who go down to the dust,
   even the one who could not keep himself alive.
   Posterity shall serve him;
   it shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation;
   they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn,
   that he has done it.

   Psa. 45:17

   I will cause your name to be remembered in all generations;
   therefore nations will praise you forever and ever.

   Matt. 28:19-20

   Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in [1] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

   Isa. 59:21

   “And as for me, this is my covenant with them,” says the Lord: “My Spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouth of your offspring, or out of the mouth of your children’s offspring,” says the Lord, “from this time forth and forevermore.”

2. I Cor. 7:14

   For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.

   
   Acts 2:39

   For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.

   Rom. 11:16

   If the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, so is the whole lump, and if the root is holy, so are the branches.

   Gen. 17:7

   And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.

This weekend I did my spring cleaning of the car.  I sprayed off the winter’s accumulation of grime and the spring’s muddy splashes, and then spent the last couple of days admiring my sparkling vehicle.  

This morning when I went out to drive youngest son to school, here’s what I found:  A very large bird (or so I assume) had done his business down the driver’s door from top to bottom.  It was too late to take care of the problem before I left, so I had to take special care while driving, double checking before I pulled out into traffic just in case there was an approaching tractor-trailor hidden behind the dried bird business on my window.

This is another reposting from a series of posts examining the statements of purpose that scripture gives us regarding the death of Christ.  You can find the other posts from this series by clicking on the purposes of Christ’s death label at the end of this post.

The text examined in this post is Ephesians 2:14-16: