The Weakness of God

"The weakness of God is stronger than human strength" (1 Cor 1.25b, NIV). What does that mean? One of the truths we meditated upon yesterday was this. It was in weakness that God was mighty to save. For the Apostle Paul, the cross of Jesus calls us to a wholesale  transformation. Jesus' cross must transform our understanding of God. A more literal translation of 1 Corinthians 1.25 would go like this: "For the foolish thing of God is wiser than humans, and the weak thing of God is stronger than humans." What is the foolish thing? What is this weak thing? The foolishness of God and the weakness of God is the cross. This is why Richard Hays writes: "This foolish and weak thing is the event of the cross itself. The cross is the key to understanding reality in God's new age. Consequently, to enter the symbolic world of the gospel is to undergo a conversion of the imagination, to see all values transformed by the foolish and weak death of Jesus on the cross." Have we been converted by the cross? What does it look like to be converted by the cross?

A Transformed View of God

To be converted by the cross is to have our understanding of God transformed. Most of us seem to be born into this world with a theology that goes a bit like this. God is very big and very powerful and very high up on something like a mountain. His natural mood is disappointed and I must summon as much strength as I can to neutralize his opinion of me. I firmly believe Jesus came to destroy this idolatrous understanding of what God is like. Indeed, Jesus reveals a God who humbles himself in order to save his enemies! John 17 defines for us what the one true God is really like. Before his betrayal, arrest, and crucifixion, John records Jesus' final prayer. Listen to how Jesus' prayer begins and ends.  

Jesus spoke these things, looked up to heaven and said: "Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, ... Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, so that they will see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the world's foundation. Righteous Father, the world has not known you. However, I have known you, and they have known that you sent me. I made your name known to them and will continue to make it known, so that the love you have loved me with may be in them and I may be in them (John 17.1, 24-26, CSB).

In this passage Jesus uses words like glory, know, and name, so we may understand him to be speaking of what is essentially true about God. He prays the Father will glorify him, the Son, so that the Son can in turn, glorify the Father. In other words, the glory of the Father and the Son will be made visible through what is about to happen. Furthermore, Jesus declares that as the Son, the one who knows the Father, he has come to make the Father known and will continue to make him known, so that the love the Father has loved the Son with, may be in us! How will this sharing of love happen? What will be the means by which the Father is made known and the love of the Father and the Son is shared with us? The cross is how. Yes! As the blood and water flowed from the wounds of the Son, the love of the Trinity was being shared with the world. Jesus opens his prayer with these words: "Father, the hour has come." Throughout John's gospel it has been declared that the hour has not yet come (See, John 2.4, 7.30; 8.20). But now, Jesus knows the hour has come for him to leave this world and return to Father (See John 13.1). This means, "the hour has come," means it is now time for the crucifixion. You see it is through the weakness and foolishness of Jesus' death that we learn of the inner love of God and it's through the cross that love the Father and Son have shared for eternity is poured out for us. This means that our understanding of what God is like must be shaped by the cross. This is why Paul argues in Philippians that because Jesus existed in the form of God, "he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity. And when he had come as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death - even to death on a cross" (Phil 2.7-8, CSB).

What does the "god" in our heads look like? According to Christianity the one true God looks like Jesus pouring himself out for his enemies on the Cross. Let us confess with the Roman soldier one of the most essential truths of our faith.

When the centurion, who was standing opposite him, saw the way he breathed his last, he said, "Truly this man was the Son of God" (Mark 15.39, CSB)! 

It is Jesus' dying breath that reveals Jesus' true identity. The cross calls us to a transformed understanding of God. Not just Jesus, but God! God is like Jesus dying on the cross. There is no other God behind the cross. God was in Christ on the cross reconciling the world to himself. This is summarized well by Plantinga.

“The Son of God just does what he sees his Father doing. He empties himself and takes the form of a servant because that’s the way they do it in his family” (Cornelius Plantinga Jr.). 

Click here to download and listen to yesterday's sermon, The Curse of the Cross.

   

How Love Overcomes Evil: Luke 4.1-13

Very few things - maybe even nothing is more important than knowing the love of Christ. Ephesians 3.14-21 serves as a hinge between the the two major sections of Paul's letter. In Ephesians 1.1-3.13 Paul tells us what is true. To over-generalize, his is the "doctrinal" section of Ephesians. Ephesians 4.1-6.20 comprises the "practical" section of the letter. In this portion, Paul tells us what to do. Paul transitions between what is true and what we must do, by praying in Ephesians 3.14-21 that we "may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge" (3.18-19). Did you catch that? The foundation upon which obedience is built, is knowing the love of Christ. The only hope we have for obeying the commands of Ephesians 4-6 is to comprehend the love of God in Christ described in Ephesians 1-3. This directly relates to this morning's study of Luke 4.1-13. Only because Jesus had absorbed the unconditional and affectionate words of his Father at his baptism (Luke 3.21-22), was he empowered to defeat evil in the wilderness. This is the same truth Paul teaches in Ephesians 3. Comprehending the love of God in Christ is the indispensable key to seeing sin defeated in our lives. What's more, we must believe God loves us before we begin to obey God in the way God desires. This is counterintuitive for most of us, because we accepted a false narrative about love. Indeed, we have reduced the definition of "love" to an emotion that is on display when Jerry Maguire says to Dorothy Boyd, "You complete me," to which she responds, "You had me at hello" (insert eye roll). Brothers and sisters, love is so much more than this sappy and emotional sentimentalism. It is love that gets a parent out of bed at 2:30am to comfort a feverish child. It is love that leads aged parents to rush to the side of their daughter whose husband has just suffered a major heart attack. It is love that drives an eighteen year old soldier to storm the beaches of Normandy. It is love that smothers a live grenade to save fellow soldiers. Beloved, the biblical concept of love is so much more potent than the fickle emotions on display in most romantic comedies. C.S. Lewis is helpful when he writes:

Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.

To love is dangerous. To love is to take a risk. To love necessarily includes pain. To love means your heart might be torn apart. And this is what God was doing in Christ on the cross. And thanks be to God this act of love defeated the Devil forever. May we never underestimate the evil-defeating power of sacrificial love.

Click here to download and listen to our message, How Evil Is Defeated. 

   

Advent Week Four: A Fire in the Belly of God

What motivated the Triune God to come to this dark world to win it back to himself? What was God seeing when he looked at the world prior the incarnation of his only-begotten Son? What was God feeling when he looked at the world? The first thing God sees is his creation, but not as he intended it. This world was created by a self-giving God to be a Temple where God dwells with us to give us life. As sons and daughters of Adam, however, we have refused God’s gracious presence and his gift of life. This is called sin. How does God respond to what he sees? Again, his response is to give himself because this is what God is like (see Philippians 2.5-11). C.B. Kruger writes: “In marked contrast to the gods of human imagination, the Christian God is not self-centered, not a taker at all, but a giver.” This generous, self-emptying nature of God is on display, not only the Story of Creation (Genesis 1-2), but also in the Story of Christmas (Luke 2). This self-emptying love motivated God to send the Savior. Remarkably, the labor pains that lead to the birth of Jesus, point to the fire in God’s belly that is an unquenchable love. This love stoops in humble service to absorb and exhaust the consequences of sin so that we might be raised to God. “Here in Christianity, we have a God who stoops, writes,” C.B. Kruger, “who wants to be united with us and who is prepared to humble Himself and even to suffer to accomplish such a union.”

An unquenchable love in the belly of God is the theological rationale for the Incarnation. It is the love of God come all the way down to us that we celebrate at Christmas. Thanks be to God!

Click here to download and listen to our message, Christmas and the Undoing of Adam.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. (John 3:16–17, ESV)

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20, ESV)

Advent Week Three: The Tender Mercy of Our God

“Love is the fundamental divine attribute in that God is love apart from the creation of the world, love characterizes God. Love is the eternal essence of the one God.” These words from the late Baptist Theologian, Stanley Grenz, capture the central truth of the songs that come from the lips of Mary and Zechariah. Jesus’ mother and his uncle declare that the saving deeds of God are driven by the inward compassion of God. Let’s take a closer look at the central section of Zechariah’s prophecy. 

And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. (Luke 1:76–79, ESV)

As Zechariah holds his promised firstborn son in his arms, he declares over him the plans our promise-keeping God has for him. Zechariah’s son will be the Most High’s prophet whose preaching will prepare God’s people to receive what the Lord is giving them. According to Zechariah the Lord is offering two gifts. First, the Lord is giving salvation. This salvation, announced and embodied by Jesus, includes an announcement of forgiveness. In other words, our debt has come due, but God is paying it it on our behalf. Secondly, the Lord is giving light. We who are rendered helpless by darkness and the shadow of death, are being given the Light of the world. What’s more the Light of the world came into the darkness but was not overcome by the darkness (John 1.5-9)  To summarize, the God of Christmas is a generous Giver who gives himself. 

Who is this generous God who gives himself? If we were to ask Zechariah to peal back the layers in search of the most fundamental essence of this generous God, he would show us the tender mercy of our God. This is similar to what Paul says in Romans 11.32. After exploring the mystery of Israel’s unbelief, the gracious in-grafting of Gentiles into God’s one vine, and the thorny issue of divine hardening, Paul states rather clearly, “God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all” (ESV). The story of salvation is intended by God to display his mercy. This is who God is and what he wants to be known for. Jesus’ uncle proclaimed the tender mercy of God. Jesus’ mother sang the mercy of God. Jesus’ servant, Paul told the story of God’s mercy. 

Against the backdrop of God’s mercy we are prepared to understand the judgment of God, or more forcefully, God’s wrath. The most basic thing that can be said about God is: “God is love.” “There is no God but the Father and the Son throughout eternity bound together by love, a relationship concretized by the Holy Spirit” (Grenz). The answer to every question that starts with, “What was God doing” (Before creation? Before sin?) is experiencing divine love. Furthermore, the purpose and goal of creation is the formation of one human family to share in the eternal love of God. Sin (see Genesis 3) enters the scene and love demands a response. This is what we call the wrath of God. It is the loving response of God to preserve, protect, maintain, and avenge that which threatens his relationship with his beloved. Brothers and sisters the Bible has much to say about God’s wrath, just as it says much about his love. We must believe all that the Bible teaches about God’s love and God’s wrath. However, we must also speak the way the Bible speaks about God’s love and God’s wrath. With the Bible we must assert that the love of God is primary. The wrath of God is secondary. The wrath of God is temporary. The love of God is eternal. Brothers and sisters, if we are asked to describe what God is like, and if our answer claims to be biblical; we must declare without qualification that God is love. Love is God’s most basic disposition. 

Monday Morning Thoughts about Sunday: 1 Timothy 4

Here’s the deal with 1 Timothy 4. Having been shaped by the pattern of this world, we, along with those Timothy was leading, are tempted to place our hope in our ability to obey rather than Jesus’ obedience on our behalf. This does not mean our obedience is of no consequence. In the same chapter where Paul uses some of his strongest language against legalism, he still instructs Timothy to “train himself for godliness … because godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come” (4.7-8, ESV). This is critical for us to grasp. A commitment to reject legalism does not mean we can no longer emphasize godliness. So how do we emphasize godliness without falling off the horse into a big pile of stinky, gospel-contradicting legalism? Please consider this one truth as a way to stay lashed to godliness without become legalistic. 

The love of God for the sinner is not affected by the sinner’s sin. 

In some imbalanced presentations of the Gospel, the disposition of God toward the sinner is one of exclusive anger. This is where Jesus enters the scene for one reason only - to assuage the one emotion God is feeling - anger. Brothers and sisters, what makes this presentation of the Gospel so dangerous is the thin element of truth it contains. With all false teaching, this is the case. An element of truth is slanted out of proportion like a fun house mirror to the point of forgetting other, more basic truths. Here’s how this works. The Bible does teach that God is angry toward sin. This is the plain fact (See Rom 1.18). The above Gospel presentation, with which each of us is quite familiar, takes the fact that God is angry toward sin and emphasizes it to the exclusion of what other texts plainly teach. Texts such as Romans 5.6-8 teach that God’s disposition toward weak and ungodly sinners is one of love. So how is that these truths coexist? God’s anger toward sin is motivated by his love for the sinner. Much like an oncologist hates cancer - Much like a cardiologist hates heart disease, God hates sin for the havoc it wreaks on those he loves. Brothers and sisters, this is basic Gospel truth. God loves sinners. What’s more, the love of God for sinners is the only reality capable of rescuing sinners from sin. Consider another text from the Apostle Paul. 

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God (Eph. 3.14-19), ESV) 

Through prayer Paul is transitioning from the Gospel reality of God rescuing sinners who are dead in their trespasses and sins (Eph 1-3), to the Gospel implications of that rescue (Eph 4-6). More specifically, Ephesians 1-3 describes what God did for the world through the Christ event. He made us alive (2.1-10) together (Jews and Gentiles, 2.11-22) with Christ. Ephesians 4-6, on the other hand, command us to walk in a certain way as a response to the reality described in Ephesians 1-3. So how do we get from the glorious saving rescue described in Ephesians 1-3, to be able to hear and obey commands like the following? 

Let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor (4.25). 
Be angry and do not sin (4.26). 
Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths (4.29). 
Be kind to one another (4.32). 
Forgive one another, as God in Christ forgave you (4.32).  

These verses describe the type of godliness for which Timothy is commanded to train himself. How do we pursue this godliness without leaning in the direction of legalism? The answer is found in Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 3.14-19. Only when we have been given “the strength to comprehend the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge” will we be able to emphasize godliness without the threat of legalism. True godliness can only be a response to God’s love. All others forms of godliness are a cheap knockoff. So let us emphasize the love of God as the only effective means by which we can be trained to be godly, because: 

For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;

as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.

For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust (Psalm 103.11-14, ESV).  

Listen here to our exposition of 1 Timothy 4.   

Here’s what I’m reading. 

The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation by Richard Rohr and Mike Morrell. 

Monday Morning Thoughts about Sunday: Communion

Here’s the deal about Communion.

As a teenager and “young” adult, I was often disappointed to learn we were “celebrating” communion. In fact, celebration would never have been a word I associated with communion. It seemed back then the Lord’s Supper was usually offered during the evening service. Our family always arrived early to every Church service, and we would walk into the sanctuary with plenty of time to spare. Often times the Deacons would still be preparing the Table by setting out the shiny silver trays that contained the tiny shot glasses of Welch’s and the plates of tiny, tasteless communion wafers. I usually felt an inner exhale of disappointment when I noticed the stacked trays, because they symbolized one thing and one thing only - guilt. Think about the irony of that for a moment. Paul writes that as often as we eat this bread and drink this cup we proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes (1 Cor 11.26). Something that proclaims the means of our atonement is something that makes us feel guilty? Houston, we have a theological problem!

As Baptists, we didn’t officially believe in anything that resembled what the Romans Catholics describe as penance. However, at Sunday evening Communion services, that’s basically what we practiced. My overly-general understanding of penance goes something like this. You’ve done something wrong. You’ve acknowledged the error of your ways and requested forgiveness. At this point a spiritual leader - call him priest, pastor, or brother so and so - tells you all is forgiven, just go do thus and so and “It’s all good!” Now, for Roman Catholics this exchange takes place in a confessional, on Saturday afternoon. For Baptists, on the other hand, this exact same deal is cut, albeit not in a confessional. It happens in the Sanctuary at 6:55 on Sunday evening. Even though we didn’t call it penance, the result was the same. The time of self-examination revealed some inward sin and we had work to do before we could experience the hospitality of God at the Table of the Lord. The Gospel, on the other hand, is quite different than both scenarios. The good news is this: God unconditionally accepts the Gospel-believing sinner. James Torrance captures this provocative truth this way:

In the New Testament forgiveness is logically prior to repentance. Because Christ has borne our sin on the cross, we are invited to repent - to receive his forgiveness in repentance. That is, repentance is our response to grace, not a condition of grace. The goodness of God leads us to repentance.

This is the truth of the Gospel and this has chaperoned our reading of 1 Corinthians 11.17-34. Without submitting our interpretation to the Gospel, we have sometimes used this passage to keep forgiven sinners from coming to Table of the Lord. After considering the historical context of 1 Corinthians 11, and looking closely at what the text actually says, we have learned that Paul is not discouraging us from coming to the Table because of some unresolved issue in our Spiritual lives. Rather, this text invites us to see the Table as Jesus’ gift to us, to help us come together in Gospel unity as the one Body of Christ partaking of the one loaf. How we approach the Lord’s Supper must be faithful to the Gospel.

Thus, as our week begins let us meditate on two Gospel Realities.

1. The mercies of God in Jesus have made us worthy family members at God’s table.
2. The Lord’s Supper has reminded us of the reality of us.

Regarding this second reality, I believe the Spirit is reminding us of the horizontal dimension of being reconciled to God. In other words, when God reconciles us to himself, that upward movement also propels us to live in reconciled relationships with all who have been reconciled to God. Paul teaches this clearly in Ephesians 2. Verses 1-10 describe our reconciliation to God by grace through faith (2.8-10). Verses 11-22 describe the horizontal result of our vertical movement toward God. Describing the two groups of Jews and Gentiles, Paul writes:

For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace (2.14-15, NIV).

To summarize: When God broke down the barrier between him and humans, he also broke down barriers that divide humans. This helps us make sense of why God requires us to live in reconciled relationships with others, because those relationships are the necessary result of living in a reconciled relationship with God (see Matt. 6.14-15). This is why communion is not about me and my overly-individualized relationship with God. Instead, communion is a gift from Jesus to sustain us within the family of Jesus, because communion is a time for me to discern the body (1 Cor. 11.29), and an opportunity to extend hospitality to all members of the Body who share the one loaf (1 Cor. 10.17).

So thanks be to God that his mercy has made us one with him and with each other.

Take a listen to our exposition of 1 Corinthians 11.17-34.

Here’s what I’m reading.

The Pastor Theologian: Resurrecting an Ancient Vision, by Gerald Hiestand and Todd Wilson

Love is our priority because love is our future.

"And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love" (1 Cor 13.13, NIV). 

Today I listened to a sermon delivered by one of my favorite professors during my time at Dallas Seminary, Dr. John D. Hannah. Dr. Hannah isn't flashy. He is not the best communicator. He is not even that easy to listen to. But he helps his students love God better and that is why I chose the major I did and why I took as many of Dr. Hannah's classes as possible. One of my favorite classes was The Works of Jonathan Edwards. The main requirement of this class was to read and understand nearly 2,000 pages of Edwards' writings and sermons - an overwhelming task to say the least! As I listened to Dr. Hannah explain 1 Corinthians 13, I was reminded of my favorite book from that semester, Charity and Its Fruits. This book is a publication of a series of expositions he delivered to his congregation in Northhampton, Mass. in 1738. The final sermon in the series is worth the price of the book: It's title - "Heaven, a World of Love." Edwards explains that because God dwells most fully in heaven, heaven is rendered

a world of love; for God is the fountain of love, as the sun is the fountain of light. And therefore the glorious presence of God in heaven, fills heaven with love, as the sun, placed in the midst of the visible heavens in a clear day, fills the world with light. The apostle tells us that "God is love;" and therefore, seeing he is an infinite being, it follows that he is an infinite fountain of love. Seeing he is an all-sufficient being, it follows that he is a full and overflowing, and inexhaustible fountain of love. And in that he is an unchangeable and eternal being, he is an unchangeable and eternal fountain of love (326-327).

These are the words from a sermon preached by Jonathan Edwards! This Reformed Puritan who is best known for his sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, also had an extraordinary appreciation for God as an infinitely loving being and we must not forget this distinctive feature of his theology. According to Edwards, the God who is angry at sin is also the God who is the fountainhead of all love. And because God is love, eternity will be a world filled with "oceans and oceans of love and love again." This is why 1 Corinthians 13.8 declares "Love never fails." Faith and hope will pass away, but love is greatest because it will never pass away. There is coming a day when there will be no more faith and no more hope because we will see Christ, the object of both our faith and hope. The permanence of love is why Edwards encourages us to think of eternity as a renewed heavens and earth filled with only love. So the famous "love chapter" can be understood as describing the God who is love and the world we will inhabit with him for eternity.

So imagine a world filled with patience and kindness. Think about a world that does not know envy, boasting or pride. Picture a human family in which no one is rude, self-seeking or angry and there is never any score-keeping or grudge-holding. Visualize a world in which everyone is protected and trustworthy. We must dream about these things now because one day our dreams will be reality!!

We must also dream about these things now because of what Paul commands us in 1 Corinthians 14.1. Paul says, "Follow the way of love." Through the power of the Spirit we who are promised a future of love, must make love our priority now.

Because in the end love will be the last thing standing we must make love our priority now.

The Necessity of Love

Happy Meals, Haircuts, Tooth Removal and Abba's Heart

After a brief respite, I resumed my duties today as the only adult in our home that will pull teeth. This was a significant one too – Alle’s left front tooth! She turns seven on Monday, so this is a birthday weekend which means yesterday we took her and four of her friends to McDonald’s for Happy Meals, presents, and that ultimate challenge to every child’s immune system – A Few Rounds in the Playland!! This morning, Yulinda and Alle also took a trip to the Hair Salon and both returned looking more beautiful than ever!! We then realized the removal of the tooth that Alle had been wiggling with her tongue and thumb was long overdue. This meant she had fifteen minutes to find a way to get the tooth to its waiting-for-the-Tooth-fairy position before adult intervention was necessary. She tried and tried and tried, albeit unsuccessfully. I was then faced with the unlovely proposition of holding my precious Alle’s quivering face in my hands. Her face being cutely bordered with its freshly bobbed hair made this all the more difficult. Furthermore, Alle’s eyes make her a candidate for Southwest Airlines commercials. They are strikingly large and grayish green with lashes whose thickness make all the thin-lashed ladies guilty of breaking the Tenth Commandment. As I held her face in my hands, she cried, “I don’t want Daddy to pull it out. I don’t want him to pull it out.” At this moment I felt a small twinge of what it must be like for our heavenly Father, when He allows temporary pain into our lives, which while it hurts, ultimately results in our good and will lead to resurrection. As I worked to inflict as little pain as possible upon Alle and to keep all my fingers attached to my hand, I kept thinking, “Alle, if you only knew how good it will feel after this is all over.” I think, just maybe, something similar runs through the Mind of heaven as we suffer. I believe our grief grieves God. I don’t believe He whines to the Community of heaven about “those sad wimpy kids of his” as our prayers for relief reach His listening ears. Instead, Jesus embodies for us a for-us Abba who longs to put an end to the suffering of His children and who will one day “wipe every tear from our eyes.” 

So offer your prayers for relief to the Father of Jesus and just maybe you will sense his longing love say to you, “If you only how good it will feel after this is all over.”

May the hope of suffering’s end enable us to endure present suffering and to work to diminish the suffering of others.