Name I Love

Name I Love

Jesus Christ--it's the name I love:

Precious Savior, Teacher and King...

Jesus Christ--lowly Lamb of God

Who will one day rule everything!

Jesus Christ, whom the prophets saw

In the types and shadows of old...

Jesus Christ, faithful Shepherd who

Sought this wand'ring sheep for His fold.

Jesus Christ's supernatural birth

Caused the choirs of angels to sing...

Jesus Christ's death upon the cross

Made His people's death lose its sting!

Jesus Christ--God in human flesh,

He alone true goodness achieved...

Jesus Christ gives that righteousness

To each guilty soul who believes!

Jesus Christ--loving Bridegroom who

Left His heav'nly home for His bride...

Jesus Christ braved the jaws of hell

So that I could dwell at His side!

MNA 10/25/13

Hear and Tremble

To err and to be human—not the same…

For I was made to glorify the Lord

By loving and by counting on His name,

Heeding His voice and trembling at His word.

What—you suggest a cosmos came to be

Without a Maker? With no grand design?

That chaos brought about complexity?

That nothing birthed a world so vast and fine?

The One who made me owns a ruler’s rights,

Yet took the pains His wisdom to express

And even stooped to earth from Heaven’s heights

To earn for me a saving righteousness!

How can I shame Him then, who loved me so—

Ignore one single word that He has said?

Can I be false—my faith not but a show

When only by His words daily I’m fed?

Does my obedience suit my own desire

With mere convenience sovereign over all?

Or is true, loving gratitude a fire

That drives my soul to heed His voice’s call?

I fear displeasure in the ones I love

And those who hold my wages in their hand—

I tremble if to judges I must prove

My innocence of flouting some command…

And conscience plagues if elders are distressed

At mischiefs done with no intent to wound;

Should I not fear to wound the One who best

Embodies all respects on earth I’ve found?

My Lord—the loved, and Lover of my soul

Who holds rewards of grace which never fade…

The Judge whose mercy swallowed justice whole

Because a debt of wrath had to be paid…

Each word, each syllable, each dot and stroke,

Each saying from His lips I shall obey,

Though scoffers sneer and learned jesters joke;

All will tremble at His word that final Day.

Weep No More

“Woman, why are you weeping?” Jesus asked Mary Magdalene as she sat grieving and puzzling over her Master’s missing body.

The worst had happened. The ultimate tragedy of her beloved Messiah’s crucifixion had been cruelly compounded by the removal of his unanointed corpse from the tomb. Not only had the former prostitute been separated from her Teacher by a murderous death, now she had also been denied the comforting dignity of ministering to his remains using the spices and ointments she and the other women had so lovingly prepared.

“I don’t know where they have laid him,” she told this stranger through her tears, this intruder whom she assumed was the keeper of the garden where the sepulcher was situated. Mary’s emotions were crushing and debilitating. All she could think of was: “Where is he? Where is the One who saved me from my evil past, who understood and forgave me, who looked beyond my sullied life and loved me? I don’t care if he’s dead…I just want to be with him one last time.”

“Mary,” the stranger said.

And with that comforting syllable all of the woman’s grief and agony began to evaporate. Beyond her wildest fantasies, the voice she heard breathed her dead hopes to life again. For there he was. There he stood. Her Master was no longer dead. He was alive again, just as he’d promised.

“Why are you weeping?” If Jesus asked you or me that question, how would we answer?

Death? Disease? Insecurity? Laboring in vain? Unanswered prayers or desires? Violence or fears? Boredom or loneliness? Felt absence of God—distance brought about by guilt?

Weeping prevails when hope is missing. Anticipation of a brighter tomorrow is what holds off the flood of tears pent up within our struggling souls. And the divine promise of the ultimate bright tomorrow is the very capstone that hold the strong arch of the Christian faith together—that assures us it will never collapse in ruins around us

“I will create a new heavens and a new earth,” God promises in at least four major passages throughout the pages of sacred Scripture. Two in the Old Testament and two in the New. The Old Testament prophecy of Isaiah was written to Jews who were about to be overthrown by the armies of Babylon and enter into a bleak and desperate time of captivity and exile away from their beloved land. Much of the message God had assigned Isaiah to proclaim was one of woe and doom and impending judgment on those who had forsaken their God and His laws.

But in the midst of those oracles of woe were seasoned in some refreshing promises of revival, restoration, re-patriation and a brand new creation, foretelling not only the end of the Jews earthly exile in Babylon, but the saving mission of the world-encompassing Savior: the long-awaited Messiah, Jesus Christ.

In the coming of Messiah, the centuries-long hope of all the patriarchs of the faith would find ultimate fruition—the ultimate payment for our sins, the guarantee of eternal peace with our Creator, the new hearts that would embrace Him and His laws with unending delight, the return to the Paradise of God that our first parents lost because of their original disobedience.

In chapter 65, Isaiah summarizes the future utopia that God has planned for all who embrace His Son by faith and enter into His new covenant. It is a world free of weeping.

It is a garden where tears are a thing of the past. A place of unending joy where Jesus is never missing. Are you ready to enter this haven of rest?