Jesus goes on to say, “Now my soul is troubled.” He is confirming he’s human. He is fully aware that he is about to suffer a horrible death, and fearful about his ability to cope; and to continue to love the human race throughout His coming pain and suffering. His knowledge that He will experience despair and feeling that He has been forsaken, even temporarily, from God, confirm to us that He is able to empathize with us when we go through our minor sufferings, because we know that He has experienced pain to a far greater extent Himself.
Category Archives: Reflections
Worship and the walnut
Worship: that is what all today’s four readings, and my reflections, lead to. Worth – the worth of God provokes our joyful, awe-filled, self-giving, profound thanks and praise – worship! Worship of God is not about us … although true worship does transform, bestow grace, and equips the worshipper.
Because, ‘True worship disinfects our egos’. So our humble service of God in the wider community becomes the only true service.
Denying self …. and taking up ..
Jesus has been healing people, calming storms, feeding thousands of people with few provisions, and teaching them in parables. But, suddenly, he tells them the most shocking thing they have ever heard from him so far …
Peter … and the other disciples, were expecting that Jesus was the promised deliverer of God’s people from the Romans. He was to be their King and rule over them, and “everything in the garden would be rosy”. Now Jesus had shattered that dream …
Sunday’s a-Comin’
In the startling economy of God, even a dangerous desert can become holy. Even our wilderness wanderings can reveal the divine. This is not because God takes pleasure in our pain, but because we live in a chaotic, fragile and broken world that includes deserts, and because God’s way is to take the things of shadow and death, and wring from them resurrection.
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