How to Read the Bible - Session 4 - Ancient Jewish Meditation Literature [Video]

Session 4

How to Read the Bible: Ancient Jewish Meditation Literature

Episode 4 explores the unique literary style of the Bible that is meant to draw its readers into a lifelong journey of reading and meditation. The Bible is designed as a multi-layered work, offering new levels of insight as you re-read it and allow each part to help you understanding every other part. The Bible is the original meditation literature.

All Content, Lessons, and Videos are taken from the Bible Project. https://bibleproject.com/explore/how-to-read-the-bible/

How to Read the Bible - Session 3 - Literary Styles [Video]

Session 3

How to Read the Bible: Literary Styles

Episode 3 shows how reading the Bible wisely requires that we learn about the ancient literary styles used by the biblical authors. These writers expressed their ideas and claims through a variety of different type of literature, and this video will explore why it's important to tell them apart so we can hear their message on their terms.

All Content, Lessons, and Videos are taken from the Bible Project. https://bibleproject.com/explore/how-to-read-the-bible/

How to Read the Bible - Session 2 - Biblical Story [Video]

Session 2

How to Read the Bible: Biblical Story

Episode 2 summarizes the overall story of the Bible as a series of crossroad decisions. All humanity, followed by the Israelites, redefine good and evil and end up in Babylon. They are followed by Jesus, who takes a different path that opens up the way to a new creation.

All Content, Lessons, and Videos are taken from the Bible Project. https://bibleproject.com/explore/how-to-read-the-bible/

Email Blast May 11 20

https://www.gracelutheranpsl.com/campaigns/view-campaign/u3vU1cPsc03NbhpeE4x5K-3eyk3XJi8oDjNs6YUahBJHfiuOYTKcIabv5dx5EsqPIqJ9EvoiQinJl85IfAiUxU8Yn0qkyh8F

How to Read the Bible - Session 1 - What is the Bible [Video]

This is a starter video series that helps you read the Bible while understanding its unique design and literary devices.

While the Bible is one unified story, it cannot all be read in the same way.

The How to Read the Bible series walks through each literary style found in the Bible, and how each uniquely contributes to the overall whole. Each literary style lives by its own rules and structure. First, lets see what the bible actually is.

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Session 1

How to Read the Bible: What is the Bible?

This is episode 1 of an ongoing series that explores the origins, content, and purpose of the Bible. Here you'll be introduced to a condensed history of how the Bible came into existence, and the different forms of the Bible in the Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Christian traditions.

All Content, Lessons, and Videos are taken from the Bible Project. https://bibleproject.com/explore/how-to-read-the-bible/

Table Talk: Apologetics [Video]

[Sunday] - Say What?! Cleanliness is Next to Godliness

Service [above] Sermon [under]

Questions for the Week

1. What’s the messiest mess you’ve ever had to clean up?

2. Read Matthew 23:27-28.  Describe a time when you felt like a whitewashed tomb?

3. According to Jesus what happens when we cleanse ourselves to look clean on the outside?

4. Read Titus 3:4-8.  How are we ultimately made clean? 

BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS THIS WEEK: Norm Neuberger - 5/11, Greta Tuning - 5/14, Deborah Lemke - 5/15, Victoria Thomason, Diane Heinz & Glenn Swiston - 5/16

WEDDING ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATIONS THIS WEEK: Chuck & Joyce Strickler 5/15/1965 - 55 years!

PLEASE CALL PEOPLE I realize I take for granted that people just come to the church on a regular basis. So that we all don’t descend into madness, let’s call and talk to each other regularly.  Phone directories are available at the church for your convenience.  

SEE YOUR GRACE FAMILY ON ZOOM! Starting at 10:30 AM, Sunday, you are welcome to join us in a virtual fellowship gathering on ZOOM.   Follow the same directions for the “Zoom Bible Study” that are on the web page to join the group, or you can also phone in and join the conversation.   

BIBLE STUDY FOR ALL Pastor Cris has started an online “live” Bible study for you to participate in.   Directions for participating can be found on the web page www.GracelutheranPSL.com.   Check it out, and if you need assistance, please call the phone number listed. 

AND…. even if you are not computer savvy or do not have computer access, you can participate over your phone.  

GIVING - Changing over to a social distance model of ministry has been quite challenging. We have had to purchase new equipment and spend lots of time getting ready. Remember, during this time, the church’s expenses will not go down even though we are not meeting in person.  During this time, we want to provide “Grace and Peace in this Chaotic and Lonely Time.”

Online Giving We have begun using Paypal for online donations. We have been approved as a trusted non profit organization. If you would like to give through Paypal, please go to: www.GraceLutheranPSL.com and click the “GIVE” button on the upper right side of the page.

What Had happened at Grace this week. 

[Announce] Live Streaming + Covid 19 and Grace

May Drone Footage

[Sunday] - Say What?! God Gains Another Angel

Service [above] Sermon [under]
Sermon Released Monday Morning

Questions for the Week

1. What do you think your neighbor would say is the role of angels?

2. Read 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18.  What does Paul have to say in this passage about those who pass away?  What hope do we have?

3. Read Luke 24:36-43.   Why do you think he has the disciples touch him and ask them for a meal?   After Jesus rises, is he a ghost, or did he have a physical body?  

4. What words would you use to encourage someone who is grieving the loss of a loved one?

BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS THIS WEEK: Kent Bowen -5/3, Paxton Becker-Sauber 5/4, 

Richard Harms - 5/5, Linda Gannon -5/6, Steven Choung - 5/8, Phyllis Schimkat - 5/9 

PLEASE CALL PEOPLE I realize I take for granted that people just come to the church on a regular basis. So that we all don’t descend into madness, let’s call and talk to each other regularly.  Phone directories are available at the church for your convenience.  

SEE YOUR GRACE FAMILY ON ZOOM! Starting at 10:30 AM, Sunday, you are welcome to join us in a virtual fellowship gathering on ZOOM.   Follow the same directions for the “Zoom Bible Study” that are on the web page to join the group, or you can also phone in and join the conversation.   

BIBLE STUDY FOR ALL Pastor Cris has started an online “live” Bible study for you to participate in.   Directions for participating can be found on the web page www.GracelutheranPSL.com.   Check it out, and if you need assistance, please call the phone number listed. 

AND…. even if you are not computer savvy or do not have computer access, you can participate over your phone.  

GIVING - Changing over to a social distance model of ministry has been quite challenging. We have had to purchase new equipment and spend lots of time getting ready. Remember, during this time, the church’s expenses will not go down even though we are not meeting in person.  During this time, we want to provide “Grace and Peace in this Chaotic and Lonely Time.”
Online Giving We have begun using Paypal for online donations. We have been approved as a trusted non profit organization. If you would like to give through Paypal, please go to: www.GraceLutheranPSL.com and click the “GIVE” button on the upper right side of the page.

What Had happened at Grace this week. 

Very Nice Post from Alzheimer's Community care's Facebook Page

Ed’s wife, Barbara, has attend the Specialized Adult Day Center in Port St. Lucie since early in 2018. Barbara has thrived there and he has thrived as a caregiver, due in part to the wonderful care and support his wife has received., “ACC has provided a wonderful experience for my wife and I now have time to take care of her and our home.” When his church, Grace Lutheran Church - Port St Lucie, FL, wanted to dive deep into a community outreach project, he recommended building a second Day Center is Port St. Lucie on their property. He knew that the need was growing and that it wouldn’t take long to fill another Center in Port St. Lucie so he advocated for it with his congregation. It was an easy sell and the members quickly embraced the mission of Alzheimer’s Community Care and as they say, “the rest is history”. Ed shared these photos recently of the progress taking place. We are so happy to partner with Grace Lutheran Church - Port St Lucie, FL and their wonderful congregation. Thank you for being the “community” in Alzheimer's Community Care.

The Freedom to Do Nothing

Source: https://mbird.com/2020/04/the-freedom-to-do-nothing/

The following was written by Sarah Denley Herrington.

What a time to be alive!

I’ve been comforted and inspired by the frequency of seeing a gracious word here and there on social media. But it gnaws at me, the guilt I feel when I don’t do enough. I recently decided to get on Facebook (which is always a good decision) and respond to this meme that’s been going around saying that if you don’t do all of these things (learn a new skill, start your side hustle, etc.) you’re lazy. Its perspective is absurdly privileged. The truth is, we’re experiencing collective trauma. But I’m convinced that if I don’t take people to task on Facebook, I’ve done a disservice to those around me who are struggling who could be comforted by my hot take. Sigh.

I recently listened to a podcast in which the guest, Celeste Headlee, who wrote a book called Do Nothing shared research about how, when people were asked their hourly rate for their work before listening to a beautiful arrangement of music, they said the piece lasted too long. The piece was three minutes.

I stay at home with my three children and homeschool them, so my hours have no such worth. And yet, I’m constantly thinking about time, work, and what Headlee called the “cult of efficiency“. And more often than not, I’m tying it to my personal worth, in conscious and unconscious ways.

I realized almost immediately when we began streaming church that, for the first time, I could monitor how much longer church would last. I felt an odd sense of control and also an incredible sense of guilt. I told myself that a large part of operating on countdown mode was my anxious personality and my unruly children who unsurprisingly seem to behave less well in the comfort of their own home, watching a screen than in the confines of a pew where some (very small, in their case) amount of decorum is expected. I also reminded myself that this wasn’t specific to a worship service. I often find myself fixated on how many episodes are left in a season of a television show or how many pages are left in a chapter of a novel. I am unquestionably a neurotic person living in a neurotic age. I did feel such satisfaction hearing about the musical piece that, at three minutes, was just too long for folks.

One thing I did manage to catch last Sunday was our pastor asking what we were grieving. I paused the service and asked my children. The first thing my big kids both said was New York. We had a trip scheduled this month. We were going to spend the last part of Holy Week there and I was planning on attending a conference that I’ve missed for the last several years and that, in very real ways, sustains me. The children were mostly going to enjoy revisiting their old favorites in the city they once spent a year and a half growing up in and sharing it with their baby sister who has been to visit once but doesn’t remember anything about it. I had tears in my eyes. What a better use of our time than all the Pinterest and home improvement projects I was scheming about and mentally writing on a list.

This hasn’t sucked entirely. In fact, we’ve been some of the lucky few who have really enjoyed this time. We’ve thrived. Largely, I think because I decided VERY early on that I did not have the energy to erect arbitrary and artificial frameworks in our days. I knew that attempts to block schedule things like “art” and “exercise” would be fruitless with my crew and would result in mutiny.

But it was hard to wrap my mind around at first. So I did the thing — I grieved it, the structure and the tidy, predictable blocks of time we operated in, for however long this would last. You can be damn sure I grieved the three mornings a week I dropped my favorite three year old off at the Methodist church preschool with the pithy, if occasionally preachy, church signage and completely precious director who gives the children lollipops with very little restraint and toddler buddies whose names filled our days. You can also be damn sure I did not grieve the multiple nights a week on the soccer field. And now we mostly just do what we want.

But the thing that has been hard has been feeling like that’s enough. Like it’s enough for me and my children and my husband (when he’s home from his essential job in the health care field that he doesn’t like to be fawned over for) to just be.

I’ve heard a lot of people talk about this “historical moment” and this “current moment in time” and one that sticks out is this “present moment.” It just seems so difficult to be present in this present moment — mentally and emotionally and spiritually. I’m certainly here physically but sometimes that feels like about all. My preteen is experiencing the onset of teenage ennui early and my little boy who is nine but developmentally about seven recently asked, “What even is this life?” And my little one, who has more energy than the other four of us combined, has been missing preschool and the sibling run-around in the afternoon and evening. We are so in our feelings. I feel the tediousness and mundaneness of this vocation on an entirely new level. I so often feel the numbness, the dull ache which I’m terrified is the depression I had finally gotten a hold of in the past year.

When I get sad and lonely and afraid, I am reminded of a great comfort and that is that Jesus is present in this present moment. When I am distracted and impatient and at the very end of my rope (or roll of toilet paper), God is in this mess beside me.

Our pastor reminded us of another fabulous truth on Easter Sunday. She said “In Christ’s resurrection, we experience the liberation from saving ourselves and the liberation from praising ourselves.” But man, do I find myself going back to those chains. I need a daily (hourly?) reminder that my worth is not found in a failed (or unattempted) house project and I also need the reminder that my worth is not found in a successful one.

For the past decade, God has used my children to show me this truth and in 2020, He is using a pandemic to show me.

Praise God for the days when I check everything off my list and for the days when I am unable to accomplish a blessed thing. And praise God that my worth is tied to neither.

Ordering Online

Roofing the building

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1st Zoom to Coffee

It was a great seeing all that joined in.

[Sunday] - Say What?! God Help Those who Help Themselves

Service [above] Sermon [under]
Sermon Released Monday Morning

Questions for the Week

1. When have you heard the phrase “God helps those who help themselves?”  Why is it normally said?

2. Read Genesis 12:10-20.  Describe what happens when Abram takes things into his own hands and tries to help himself in a time of distress.  How do we often try to do the same thing?

3. Read Philippians 4:10-15.  What does this say about contentment?  

4. Describe a time when you have been strengthened by Jesus’ presence in your life.

What Had happened at Grace this week. 

Table Talks: Historical Faith

During the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther would sit around his dinner table at home with friends and students and talk about life and theology. Over the past year, we've started to emulate these famous talks with our friends and family, and today we're excited to share the first one with you. This third episode, hosted by Kelsi Klembara Adam Francisco, Malte Detje, Bob Hiller, and Dan van Voorhis as they explore the topic of Historical Faith.

April 23 2020 - Gen 3 the Fall

https://youtu.be/Zy2AQlK6C5k

What does the Bible really teach about heaven, and what is heaven's relationship to earth? In this video, we explore the surprising biblical viewpoint that h...

Good Seeing you guys today

Cris

The Ministry of Weirdness, Courtesy of The Rev. Alfred Yankovic

Source: https://mbird.com/2020/04/the-ministry-of-weirdness-courtesy-of-the-rev-alfred-yankovic/

by DAVID ZAHL 

“Even as a child, I understood on some intuitive level that Weird Al was not merely the Shakespeare of terrible food puns (“Might as well face it you’re addicted to spuds”) or an icon of anti-style (poodle fro, enormous glasses, questionable mustache, Hawaiian shirts) but a spiritual technician doing important work down in the engine room of the American soul. I could not have said why, but I felt it.”

Thus reads a key passage of the masterful profile of Weird Al Yankovic that Sam Anderson penned for The NY Times Magazine last week. CJ mentioned the article in last Friday’s round-up and we discussed it at length on The Mockingcast, so consider this the full court press to read about America’s favorite pre-Internet pop music parody icon.

Absurd as it sounds, Alfred Yankovic may constitute the final link in the holy trinity of 80s American pop culture alongside Dolly Parton and Fred Rogers. What I mean is he appears to be that rare celebrity who understands–and fulfills–his role as a spiritual calling. A vocation, if you will. Because what Anderson describes in the article is nothing short of a ministry. This is a man whose art and presence, under the auspices of pure ridiculousness, imparts grace to those who come into contact with it. And not a superficial form either.

There’s a clear link here between the unlikelihood of the messenger and the depth of the resonance, something dead serious (and good!) transpiring under the aegis of the absurd. The Nazareth Principle in action, big time.

I’m getting ahead of myself. Like many in my generation, my main exposure to Weird Al was the music videos he made in the 80s, “Eat It,” “Fat”, “Like a Surgeon”–parodies that now seem both incredibly tame and genuinely, well, weird. He was the court jester of that entire MTV scene, and we loved him for it. Then came his movie UHF, which my older brother made us rent from the video store probably ten times the year it came out. We watched it so often, in fact, that it took a full three seasons of Seinfeld before I stopped thinking of Kramer as a faster talking Stanley Spadowski.

No one could have predicted Al’s staying power. When grunge came along, he rose to the occasion with “Smells Like Nirvana” (another amazing video). Then a few years later he brought us “Amish Paradise.” Then a decade later, “White and Nerdy”. The hits somehow kept coming, even after YouTube gave us an army of knock-offs.

What strikes me now about Al, more than the punchlines or even the aesthetic (which has dated better than almost anything of that era!), was the sheer gratuity of it. His stuff was so gloriously unnecessary. What I mean is that if in 1975 you convened a committee to forecast the pop culture landscape of the future, no one would have suggested, “well, we have to make sure we fill the ‘near-sighted accordian-playing parodist who sells millions’ slot.” There was no reason for him to exist as anything more than a cult figure, and yet there he was, a semi-major cultural force for decades. And he made our lives all more colorful as a result. A gift, pure and simple.

Anderson distills Al’s appeal this way:

As his name suggested, Weird Al’s comedy operated right at the hot spot of my childhood agonies: weirdness versus normalcy, insider versus outsider. What a Weird Al parody did was enact a tiny revolution. It took the whole glamorous architecture of American mainstream cool — Michael Jackson’s otherworldly moves, Madonna’s sexual taboos — and extracted all of the coolness. Into that void, Weird Al inserted the least cool person in the world: himself. And by proxy, all the rest of us weirdos, along with our uncool lives.

We want our fantasy and our escape, in other words, but we also want communion and laughter. To, er, have our lunch and eat it too. I guess you could say Al served as a release valve for Me Decade pretensions.

And yet… I don’t think that’s enough to account for his longevity. For a clue about what’s really going on here, you have to go to the fans.

The first inkling I got came after A Mess of Help came out. I had spoken at an event somewhere, and afterward, a middle-aged woman approached me to asked me what I thought about… Weird Al. The gleam in her eye told me it was less of a question and more of a secret handshake. If it was a test, I failed. But I heard from her a few months after the event, saying that she’d put a copy of the book in his hands at a meet-n-greet, and then asking me to pray for him, since he was on the road and far from his… church. Huh, I thought, filing that last tidbit away for a rainy day reddit investigation.

Well, Anderson’s article has officially spared me that investigation. His testimony of what Weird Al meant to him growing up–as well as what Al meant to Andy Samberg, Lin Manuel-Miranda, and Michael Schur (Parks and Rec, The Good Place)–stopped me in my tracks. And Al’s own “origin” only made matters more profound. This wasn’t that cruel subversion known as nerd-cool, nor a novel strand of seculosity. It was something far more beautiful, more akin to a ministry of grace than anything else. That the grace in question might be based in something deeper than human kindness, well, it’s enough to make this grown man feel like a kid at Spatula City.

Do yourself a favor and read the entire article, but don’t miss the end, which reads almost like a living translation of 1 Corinthians 1:27 (“But God chose the foolish weird things of the world to shame the wise normal; God chose the weak things bedwetters of the world to shame the strong cool”). PtL:

One of many incredible pictures from the NY Times profile

The only real exception to Weird Al’s self-isolation [while he was on tour] came late at night, after the shows, when he would interact with fans in elaborate V.I.P. sessions: photos, autographs, chats. Yankovic would do basically anything fans wanted. He would mug for the camera or flex like a bodybuilder or sign people’s arms. He signed posters, cassette tapes, action figures, accordions, spatulas, glow-in-the-dark snorkels. I saw him sign a package of bologna and an exact replica of a “Star Wars” storm trooper helmet. These were not autograph hounds but true devotees, exactly the kinds of people Yankovic placed at the center of his songs: nerds, misfits, weirdos. Many fans seemed to have just emerged, for the first time in forever, from tiny rooms of their own. They were less interested in a photo op than in a sort of spiritual transfer.

Most of all, the fans thanked Weird Al. They thanked him for his music, for not dying of heatstroke onstage, for voicing the character Banana Man on the cartoon “Adventure Time,” for helping them survive cancer, for helping them survive their mother’s cancer.

“I got introduced to your music when I was going through — struggles — in my life,” said a young, balding man wearing a brown suit, and the word struggles was surrounded on all sides by an unfathomable gulf of feeling. “You helped me pull through.”

Weird Al listened with deep eye contact. “Thank you,” he said. “That means a lot to me.”

“Thank you for all the joy you bring to the world,” said a woman in Minnesota.

“Thank you for making my best times brighter with your songs,” said a young man in North Dakota.

“Thank you for letting us all be ourselves.”

“Thank you for being you.”

Weird Al’s bond with his fans is atomic. He will stop and speak with them anywhere — at airports, outside the tour bus — for so long that it becomes a logistical problem. The fans approach him like a guru, and Weird Al responds with sweet, open, validating energy.

Joel Miller, the friend who defended Yankovic from college bullies, said the relationship between Weird Al and his hard-core fans is deeply personal. “He’s giving them validation,” he told me. “They feel a kindred spirit. When they’re at his concerts, they are in a safe space. They are able to be stupid or outlandish or whatever, exactly as they want. And nobody judges them. In fact, it’s the opposite. People appreciate them for what they are, not for what they aren’t.”

The connection is so deep that it is more like a merging, and after a while it struck me that Weird Al has spent basically his whole life making his music for exactly these people, which is to say for his childhood self. For many decades, he has been trying to delight Alfred Yankovic, the bright, painfully shy kid who grew up alone in his tiny bedroom. For the benefit of that lonely boy, he reshaped the whole world of pop culture. His ridiculous music sent out a pulse, a signal, and these were the people it drew: the odd, the left out. A crowd of friends for that lonely kid. As I watched him with his fans, sometimes I felt as if Weird Al was multiplying all around me, multiplying inside of me. We were one crowd, united in isolation, together in a great collective loneliness that — once you recognized it, once you accepted it — felt right on the brink of being healed.

Is God Angry With Us?

Source: https://www.1517.org/articles/is-god-angry-with-us

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR: Daniel Stenberg is married to Karen, and they have 5 boys. He is a graduate of the Lutheran Brethren Seminary in Fergus Falls, MN. Daniel is passionate about proclaiming Christ crucified, music that is harder than the stuff you listen to, video games, and the Seattle Seahawks. Daniel is currently serving as the pastor at Calvary Church in Bergenfield, NJ.

“Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” is one of the more popular sermons in American history. British Colonial Christian Theologian Jonathan Edwards, painted the picture of a God with an itchy trigger finger, constantly at the ready to dispense justice on wicked sinners. The God that Edwards describes is so angry at sin, and those that live in it, that he is doling out bits and pieces of Hell to the wicked, that they might understand what their future holds should they continue down the path they are currently on.

This picture of God being angry at sinners, of God bringing punishment upon those that sin is a pretty common theme in modern evangelical America. How many times have I heard that God would smite the United States because of our current abortion laws? When a natural disaster strikes certain parts of our country or certain areas of the world, I often hear a soft undercurrent in Christian circles about how God was punishing those affected for the sin that they have ignored or accepted. From this perspective, what does COVID-19 tell us about God’s thoughts on the world as a whole? Is he so angry with the sin that runs rampant in our world that he is smiting us for it? Punishing us for it? That he is giving us a taste of hell, venting some of his rage so that we might be scared back into submission? Is this God’s way of letting us know we’ve toed the line one too many times and now we’re getting put in the penalty box for a time out?

Many Christians live with the understanding that if we do something wrong, God will punish us. And so, we must do everything, or at bare minimum as much as we can, right. We must continue to live within God’s laws, we must continue to live lives that are pleasing to God. If we don’t, we risk sickness, or disease, or being laid off, or any number of punishments that God may come up with. Many Christians are walking on eggshells, living as if we are sinners in the hands of an angry God.

Which begs the question: Is he? Is God angry with us?

There are many reasons that I love Easter. Holy Week is by far my favorite week of the year. Because during this week I am informed of God’s feelings about me. This is the week that Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey, victoriously submitting himself to God’s plan. This is the week that there is a dinner in an upper room in which Jesus institutes the Lord’s Supper, which I now get to celebrate while I rest and rejoice in the forgiveness poured out over me by God. And it is during this week that I read about Jesus in the garden asking God to take the cup from him. The cup of wrath. This is the cup of God’s anger at sin. This is the cup of God’s punishment, his divine retribution. Jesus is innocent. He is perfect and pure and blameless. There is no need for him to suffer the wrath of God, and yet: “Not my will but yours be done,” says the voice of my Savior. And from this cup of wrath, Jesus drinks fully. And so on Jesus God’s wrath was poured out perfectly. He did not save a couple of drops to pour out on me for when I cheated on a test. He did not save the swill at the bottom for when I was vulgar in my thought and speech, that he might hit me with some wrath to keep me in line.

No, Jesus drank from the cup fully, drained every last drop. All of God’s anger over my sin directed completely at Jesus. Through faith in Christ, through the faith that has been given me, I am not the recipient of God’s wrath, only Jesus is. And that wrath manifested itself this week when Jesus went to the cross. There he hung, abandoned by God, the cup of wrath was fully poured out, and having finished the drink, he declared: “It is finished.” God’s wrath is spent. The cup is empty. There is nothing left, no drop, for me to lay claim to. And then my Savior, my substitute, died, alone and abandoned.

And it is this week, Sunday morning, Easter, we celebrate Jesus rising again. We celebrate how he defeated sin and conquered death. We celebrate a relationship with God restored on account of Christ’s work on our behalf. We celebrate the outpouring of God’s love for us. His love, not his wrath.

So Christian, are you a sinner in the hands of an angry God? You’re a sinner, yes. But is God angry at you? No. God’s wrath was poured out on Jesus, totally and completely. Rest in the truth that God looks on you with love and favor on account of Jesus. Live in the comfort that when we fail there is forgiveness, not the itchy trigger finger of a ticked off God. Rejoice in the complete work of Christ on the cross.

"Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all." (Isaiah 53:4-6)