Day 4
What are your thoughts on Day 4's reading?
I have found it refreshing to take a few moments to just be quiet and reflect each day - something I know I should do, but don't always do.
WGBC Discipleship
The Discipleship Team invites you to jump-start your daily quiet time with inspirational thoughts from Joni Eareckson Tada. Join us starting April 20th as we journey together for 31 days “toward the heart of heaven and into the love of our Father and Savior”. We will read Joni’s book Intimacy with God together as a congregation.
Welcome! This is a place to read and comment on the 31 Days book. Still need a book? It's not too late! Contact Alan Fearnow or Jennie Rose
6 Comments:
I too have trouble with Joni's intreprtation of Christ's crucifixion(note Jan's comment under Day 1). I do not think that God turned his back on Jesus..that He accused Jesus of anything, I am not a Bible scholar but I feel that God probably wept that day as Jesus hung on that cross..crying for the pain and angony that His only son had to endure so that God's plan for redemption of the world could be fulfilled. I don't thing it was abandonment. I think God felt just like any parent who has to watch as their child suffers. We hurt and weep when our children suffer whether it is physical or emotional pain that they are dealing with and we want to take the pain away but know that we can't. We have to stand by and be there for them but that doesn't mean that we turn our backs on them. God is my heavenly father and He loved His own son just as much or probably more than he loves me. He won't ever turn His back on me as long as I seek Him and I feel that He would not have turned His back on Jesus.
Jan, thank you for the Psalm 22:24 reference. I agree - Joni's interpretation is so far removed from the God who said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." I don't think God was pouring out his anger on His son, but had turned away in anguish over the suffering His son was enduring on the cross. God knew that this pain was necessary, just as a parent knows that shots at the doctor's office are necessary. God heard Jesus, but "...listened to his cry for help.". (Psalm 22:24)
I guess i prefer the way Joni said it the first time "the answer was silence". God knew He could not take Jesus off of that cross so He just did not respond. As hard as that sounds God determined that was the way it had to be. Then He could say to you and me "I will never leave you or forsake you".
Can you imagine that God loves us so much that He sent Jesus to die on the cross, to be our ransome? He knew what that meant. He knew Jesus would take the scorn we deserved. He planned for Jesus to have humiliation heaped on Him. He created the perfect lamb to bear our sin, your sin, my sin. I believe that on the cross hung the ugliness and sin of the human heart, and that God did reject it. Without Jesus paying my debt, my sin makes me unworthy of God. That day on the cross, smeared with my filth and carrying the weight of our sinful hearts, Jesus was unworthy of God. He was taking the pain, death, and even the rejection that was righfully mine. We deserve to be separated from God - to be foresaken - to be rejected. Jesus was on the cross to take what we deserve.
Of course she doesn't get to the heart of Jesus's mission - the resurection! Imagine! The lamb sent in our place was so precious that death could not hold Him! That means to God, WE ARE WORTH IT!
But...Jesus and God are One Spirit. Jesus WAS worthy of God! "I and the Father are One." What God planned, Jesus planned (John 1); what Jesus suffered, God must have suffered. I don't see the separation; I do see the testimony and symbolism for we humans who are believers. *God was speaking from the cross*!!
And, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I can't help but notice our reactions are divided down -- yes,it's true -- gender lines!!
By mistake I posted my originial comment (for Day 4) on the Day 1 page -- here it is:
At April 23, 2008 6:50 AM , campbelljp@verizon.net said...
Day 4 -- I cannot agree with Joni's interpretation (which I have often seen before) of Jesus' final words at the crucifixion in Matthew 27:46. The idea that God would coldly turn away while Jesus suffered doesn't seem to be in character with God's nature. Yes, Jesus took upon himself the sins of the world, willingly, but estrangement from God? I don't think so!
Rather, read Psalm 22 in its entirety. True to his nature, to the very end Jesus was quoting beloved scripture and chose Psalm 22 to express his agony and the betrayal of the people around him, and to ask for deliverance from this life. But go to v. 24 and following for the point of the psalm: All who fear the Lord should praise him; God has not hidden his face from the suffering one; God's kingdom will come on earth; all will bow down before him; for *he has done it*. "It is finished."What a testimony!
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