Tune and Prepare!

Rob Brockman The Gospel Coalition ca.thegospelcoalition.org We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer. Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. – 1 Cor. 10:9-11 My wife and I lost our baby recently. Sienna had what is known as a ‘molar pregnancy’ – an incredibly rare defect where the placenta goes rogue and doesn’t do its job of providing nutrients to the baby. When she went for the 13-week ultrasound (I was travelling in Newfoundland at the time), the technician could not find a heartbeat. We were devastated. Our first child was gone. Where we expected to hear a heartbeat, we heard deafening silence. But then, to make matters worse, we both got COVID two days after finding out we had lost our baby. Not the light cough version of COVID either, but t...

Andreas Köstenberger D  on't focus on the suffering of Jesus to the extent that you neglect the glory of the Cross in and through the Resurrection. Certain Christian traditions tend to focus almost unilaterally on the suffering of Jesus on the cross, on the incredible pain he had to endure, and on his humiliation and separation from God. This can be seen in cinematic depictions such as Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ , the Roman Catholic reenactment of his path to the crucifixion on the Via Dolorosa (the Way of Sorrows) in the stations to the Cross, and in quite a few sermons both of us have heard in the evangelical churches we attended (not to mention many of our favorite hymns).  Of course, the four biblical Gospels, especially Matthew, Mark, and Luke, concur that Jesus suffered a great deal for us as he gave his life for our salvation so that we could be forgiven of our sins. And yet, there is another aspect to the Easter story. It is best encapsulated i...