The Sweet Dropper

REVISIT

The Genesis 22 passage is hard to handle, almost too horrifying for us to imagine. On Monday morning after preaching it I read again Eugene Peterson’s chapter the Mt. Moriah incident in his book The Jesus Way. He asks some penetrating questions about faith as we see it exercised in Abraham’s life:

What did [the New Testament writers] see in Abraham that they named faith? Was it not this lifetime of internalizing the commanding and promising but invisible God and then stepping out on the road in obedience? Was it not this readiness to leave wherever he was and leave whatever he had in order to embrace the vision, the covenant, the command? Was it not a life of responsive openness to God and a matching indifference to whatever conditions he found himself in? Was it not a lifetime disposition to receive God rather than to satisfy himself?

REMIND

First Wednesdays: Remember that the first Wednesday of each month there is a Women’s Bible Study, led by Maureen Boswell, on Tim Keller’s book The Prodigal God. The turnout has been great for that excellent study. While the women are studying together, I will lead a Men’s Forum, in which we will seek greater biblical perspective on the current financial crisis through teaching and discussion.

RUMINATE

Many people are afraid to talk about death. Some of our older, mature saints speak frankly and biblically about dying, and when they do, I can see the uneasiness in the faces of others. It has not always been this way. In the late 16th century Lewis Bayly gave marvelous advice and suggested prayers for ministering to those who were at death’s door in his popular book The Practice of Piety. In 1616 English Puritan pastor William Perkins wrote The Right Manner of Dying Well. Now think about the 19th century. In the Victorian era there were certainly excesses and obsessions about death–graphic and over-written and sanitized accounts of deathbed scenes, not to mention that this was the era that gave us embalming as we know it today. The Victorians were quite comfortable with talking about death, but deathly afraid of talking about sex.

Today, the pendulum has swung to the other extreme. In our day we talk openly and frankly and incessantly about sex, but we try our hardest both to hide death and to hide from death. Not talking about death does not delay it one moment, however. We must deal with it. We ought to be prepared–prepared through trust in Christ and seeking all the assurance that he imparts, together with “numbering our days” that we may gain a heart of wisdom, as Moses teaches us to pray in Psalm 90.

ANTICIPATE
Morning Worship: I’m preaching Genesis 23, in which Sarah dies and Abraham purchases a grave site for her–the first portion of Canaan that Abraham can truly call his. Among the hymns we’ll sing are The God of Abraham Praise and I Know Whom I Have Believed.

Evening Worship: I’ll bring the fourth message in the series The Unveiling: the Revelation of Jesus Christ. We’ll observe how the Church is unveiled for us in Revelation 2-3 in all its wondrous mystery and all its mess. We’ll celebrate the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper in the service.