23

Why must the Redeemer be truly God?
That because of his divine nature his obedience and suffering would be perfect and effective; and also that he would be able to bear the righteous anger of God against sin and yet overcome death. (Acts 2:24) (from here)

Lord Jesus, you were a man just like us yet even more human, for you lived it perfectly. And you were also Almighty God. This is most strange - completely God, you were a man. Completely a man, you were God.

It's strange but it is very good. No mere person could suffer what you suffered - we would all die before receiving the minutest part. But you bore the punishment of all, for all time. Because of your divinity, we are saved. Thank you, Lord, for being willing to come down from your exalted place to endure this horror.

Before you came, we lived in a world where there was no longer any hope to be found in the race of man. We retained something of our ancient dignity, but ever broken and corrupted. You became our only hope; the only one who could live a perfect life and die a perfect death. Thank you, God, for giving us yourself.

Jesus, you became our perfect Mediator. You understand and sympathise with us in our weakness, and you speak to the Father on our behalf, holding up your nail-pierced hands. When Satan accuses us, we can remember this and walk confidently into your presence. Thank you, thank you, God.

22

Why must the Redeemer be truly human?
That in human nature he might on our behalf perfectly obey the whole law and suffer the punishment for human sin; and also that he might sympathize with our weaknesses. (Hebrews 2:17) (from here)

As I write this, Lord, you know of my disappointment and frustration: these things are not foreign to you. You have been through everything we go through and you sympathise with us - which is often exactly what we long for. But you didn't come to earth just to hold our hand in our disappointments and pain, though even that would be astonishing. You came to show us true humanity - how a life can be lived, what a man can be. You did that so you would be ready to die on the cross, so you could take our place there. Each hour and second of your short and perfect life was leading there. There you took what was owing to us for having defiled the life we are given, for undoing what a man should be. You hung there as one of us, on behalf of all your brothers, and when you rose again we were free.

21

What sort of Redeemer is needed to bring us back to God?
One who is truly human and also truly God. (Isaiah 9:6) (from here)

(Yay! Blue!)

For now I don't have to understand why this is: I have only to trust that a God-man was our one hope. You knew this and you did it, and I am grateful. You became what we are, fragile and battered by myriad things outside our control. You became subject to the things you had created. One day you were wholly, truely and only GOD, sitting and ruling over all in glory; the next you took on humanity, starting off as a voiceless, vulnerable foetus tucked inside a young mum. I don't understand it, but I know that because of your self-humbling I am lifted up, and without it I would still be wandering around in my arrogance and unhappiness, unwilling to listen to you until that day when I would be made to bow the knee and would hate you for it.

20

Who is the Redeemer?
The only Redeemer is the Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, in whom God became man and bore the penalty for sin himself. (1 Timothy 2:5) (from here)

You redeemed us. We were lost and you redeemed us. You paid the price in your body so we might be released and restored. You walked into that North Korean labour camp, quietly demanding that all the prisoners be set free and that you would undergo their torture and animal labour. Except that we weren't innocent political prisoners - we deserved what we got, what was coming to us. The punishment was cruel because it was just - not a fraction less or more than what we had done.

How in a few hours you could suffer the punishment of all, I do not know. It was intense where it might have been eternal. And more intense because GOD was being punished. More intense because the SON cried to the FATHER, "Why have you forsaken me?".

This is what it took to redeem us. A few hours of the greatest evil as we killed God and as the Father looked on you as the sum of all human perversity. A few hours of the greatest love as you submitted to it all for love of your Father and of us, and after which the Father raised you singing to his side, crowning you with glory. This is what it means when we call you our Redeemer. It is no small thing. Help me never utter those words lightly.

19

Is there any way to escape punishment and be brought back into God's favour?
Yes, to satisfy his justice, God himself, out of mere mercy, reconciles us to himself and delivers us from sin and from the punishment for sin, by a Redeemer. (Isaiah 53:10-11) (from here)

I first heard this as a child and with a child's acceptance of all things taught, it seemed natural to me. Lord, I find it hard to marvel at what you did, difficult to see how strange and utterly unlikely. Help me see this, Lord. It is not so rare to have a sense of God or to fear a final accounting - but a God of love, of compassion and mercy, a God who would humble himself and be belittled, a God who would deign to suffer injustice at the hands of his creation? That is rare, rare stuff. We would never have imagined a god like you, who is wholly just and loving and who answers that paradox by giving of himself. Never.

Without the cross we would be completely, terribly lost, and it would be better not to think on what comes after death. With it we have the possibility of being reconciled and now we are yours, unbreakably safe, unfathomably beloved.

Help me marvel at who you are and what you have done, and help others see this astonishing beauty. Thank you, Lord. You are lovely.

18

Will God allow our disobedience and idolatry to go unpunished?
No, every sin is against the sovereignty, holiness, and goodness of God, and against his righteous law, and God is righteously angry with our sins and will punish them in his just judgment both in this life, and in the life to come. (Ephesians 5:5-6) (from here)

Lord, I don't like this dwelling in the shameful, guilty, terrifying part of reality. Knowing the hopeful truth, I want to hurry there - but today I'm to consider your punishment for sin. Whenever I think about it, my mind and heart turn tricks to explain it and, so doing, minimise it. I want to say, 'Hell is the absence of God', but then I realise that I am trying to exlude all the cruelty and perversion and abuse that humans commit in this life, as if somehow your absence will create nothing more than a neutral, melancholy place. Lord, I know that the people there will grind their teeth with hate for you. And that somehow you will be present to punish-

Lord, I don't see that our sin is worthy of such a place, though I believe it is. For a psychopath or dictator, sure. But for my friends, for me as I once was, and would still be but for you? Yet I know that what lies at the heart of every respectable, egoist sin is your dismissal and that there is nothing more grotesque.

Help me see you better that I realise the unbridled evil of this. Help me know you better that I appreciate the precious goodness of submitting to you. Help me warn my friends even when they do not want to hear. Let me show them the wrongness of their lives lived without reference to you, and the danger of continuing like this, in a way they will hear. Thank you Lord that you are not only a God of righteousness, but also a God of incredible mercy. Have mercy, Lord, have mercy.

17

What is idolatry?
Idolatry is trusting in created things rather than the Creator for our hope and happiness, significance and security. (Romans 1:21 & 25) (from here)

Lord, I don't want to talk about this because I love my idols so much I'm afraid you'll take them away. Somehow I think that by never mentioning them, you won't notice they're there. Silly. I'm like a kid who cuts their fringe and acts as if nothing's wrong, or who hides a broken thing the best their little limbs can manage, leaving most of it on display. Forgive me.

Lord, the things I don't want you to take away are... Now I have to think about what these fears show my idols to be- Lord, this isn't good. You should be enough for me. Thank you for giving me Pablo to teach this to me. Help me learn it and be glad. Help me see truely, and give me the courage to act on what you teach me - that you are sufficient and best - even when my heart is not yet convinced. Take from me this image of you as grasping and mean - that you would enjoy taking good things from me to make me love you more. Help me see that you are gracious and gentle, kindly and very generous. Bless me and teach me to enjoy what you give me as undeserved gifts from a better God. Let me know you so well and love you so dearly that I don't fear the loss of these things, but rather that they lose their import because you are my treasure and my heart's delight.

God, I am a baby in this. Take my hand, lead me and teach me, that I may be an example for others, that I may honour you as is your due. Amen.

16

What is sin?
Sin is rejecting or ignoring God in the world he created, rebelling against him by living without reference to him, not being or doing what he requires in his law—resulting in our death and the disintegration of all creation. (1 John 3:4) (from here)

Sin is my shame and my pleasure, Lord. I have done and thought ugly things and not done good because I chose to ignore or reject you. And even now I follow in that path - because I like it and I think I know best. I show myself a fool because it is you who are good and wise, and I do best when I follow you. Forgive me and change me, Lord, for I am lost without you, a dumb punk rewriting rules that were beautifully set, raging against an authority to whom I owe my existence, who gives me my every breath, and who does all to bless me. Make me see how evil and perverted and ugly is my sin. Let me not brush over some 'small' rejection of you. Make me your happy, gladly-trusting servant and child. Make me a woman of God, lovely and strong and weak. Let me love you and have no god apart from you, not even myself. Amen and amen.

15

Since no one can keep the law, what is its purpose?
That we may know the holy nature and will of God, and the sinful nature and disobedience of our hearts; and thus our need of a Savior. The law also teaches and exhorts us to live a life worthy of our Savior. (Romans 3:20) (from here)

I try to follow your ways, Lord, and when I do, it is a blessing to me. In the reading and doing of it, I learn more of who you are, of your loveliness and grandeur. I know what you would have me do and I know where I go awry and what I have to repent of. I need your forgiveness or I am damned. In these ways, your Law is my life. Without it I would flounder in the dark and think it day. Thank you for making me dismay and for giving me hope, for forgiving and empowering me. Life's still a crazy, messed-up thing, but it's a million times better than before and I know I can trust you, the God of these fine laws. May I ever marvel and tremble before you, Lord. Humble me and lift me up and keep my feet walking the good paths. Amen.

14

Did God create us unable to keep his law?
No, but because of the disobedience of our first parents, Adam and Eve, all of creation is fallen; we are all born in sin and guilt, corrupt in our nature and unable to keep God’s law. (Romans 5:12) (from here)

There was a time when we had not yet acquired a liking for sin, when it sat there a nameless possibility without nothing that would have us look again. I think that in that time it must have been less than that - everything then was so good and right and satisfying that I reckon sin went utterly unnoticed. As our forefathers gazed around at the loveliness of the world, their eyes brushed past it but without registering anything at all, for there was nothing - nothing! - they lacked.

And then Satan came along and gave it a little polish with his lying rags. He photoshopped it, making it suggest a brighter promise, an empowering autonomy. There is more truth in today's photoshopping, for the world now is messed-up and we do lack. But then there was no lack. There was no lack. Yet to have a 'better', you need a 'less-good', and that was the lie Satan got our forefathers to believe - a lie about the world, a lie about what he had to offer, a lie about themselves, and a lie about God. And because God had made the world with this couple not only as the first people, but also the representative people, it has come to us all. They acted in our name. We are born with the guilt of it and we are born with it. Our snatching toys off other kids and screaming "MINE!" about things that aren't ours isn't somehow cute - it's a common evil. We are incurably selfish and egoist and that's just how it is for us. We're not like this 'cos someone is making us, but because we want to be. We do the things we do because we want to. And there is no hope: it's so fixedly and fundamentally part of us. We are lost.

And now in Jesus we have hope. And we can chose the right and want the good. And he has undone and made new all that the first man destroyed. Because of him, the world is utterly changed. It's like a story but it is real. There was a day two thousand years ago when everything changed.

It's so strange, Lord. So unlikely... until I look around and see what it explains. And look to my own heart: what it is now, what it was. Thank you.

13

Can anyone keep the law of God perfectly?
Since the fall, no mere human has been able to keep the law of God perfectly, but consistently breaks it in thought, word, and deed. (Romans 3:10-12) (from here)

Forgive me for my sin, Lord. I think ugly things; I care little for people; I expect myself to be the star of the lives of all around me; I care little for your commands and I think ill of you; I am hardly troubled by my sins - I forget to confess them, and when I do, I struggle to name them. All this of treating others with humanity and respect and great care and ever remaining upright - I fail at it all, and when I do do it, my motives and emotions are impure. And I do not begin to grasp that for these particular sins in my life, including those of today, Jesus had to die; nor do I understand what he suffered.

Forgive me, Lord. Help me see and shudder at my sin - and then rejoice. Help me face up to and endure the shame of it, with certain hope that I will be immediately, unhesitatingly and utterly forgiven, made clean, and welcomed by you. Thank you. Thank you.

12

What does God require in the ninth and tenth commandments?
Ninth, that we do not lie or deceive, but speak the truth in love. Tenth, that we are content, not envying anyone or resenting what God has given them or us. (James 2:8) (from here)

Lord, I see that these last commandments are all of a piece. We are not to hate or injure our neighbour, nor are we to cheat on our most intimate relation, nor steal what is others. And here, we are not to cause injury by lying, nor to even yearn after what is others and wish it ours. Once again, we are to ever be unright and content, even should our situation be undesirable and our actions make things worse for us. We are to think less in and of ourselves and more of others - and you. We are to think of ourselves - not in terms of achieving comfort and pleasure, but rather striving for beauty of character, making you proud. Guard my tongue and heart, Lord. Let me always speak the truth, in love. Let me be content. Let me trust you to look after me as I live this way. Amen.