Letting Go and Letting God

 Letting Go and Letting God

Romans 7:7-25, Matthew 11:16-30[1]

Many of you may know that “Let go and let God” is one of the slogans of the Twelve-Step movement. It’s based on the principle that many have learned to be true: when we try to control circumstances and people we wind up with a life that’s too much for us to handle. We feel overwhelmed, we feel frustrated or anxious or both at the same time, and we may feel defeated. All that comes from the “insanity” of thinking we can get the outcomes we want in life with enough effort. Some of us don’t think that’s “insane” at all; it’s simply stepping up and taking on our responsibilities. But even if we don’t feel the frustration and helplessness of trying to control other people, they most certainly do.

Last week we talked about how making our religion a matter of following rigid rules leads us to a way of life defined by whom we exclude. But the other side is what we do to ourselves when we take that path of religious perfectionism. When we think we can “do it all by ourselves” when it comes to following Jesus and honoring God, it’s a lot like thinking we can control our lives and the people in it. We wind up frustrating ourselves, or those around us, or both. More than that, we tend to express our religion by condemning people. On one side we see people who are more conservative than we are and we think that they’re too strict. On the other side we see people who are more progressive and we think they’re too lax. It seems like what we really want is to be in control of everyone around us.

That’s what’s going on in our Gospel lesson with the strange comment Jesus makes about people being like children who whine, “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn” (Mt 11:17). John the Baptist lived simply and practiced a rigorous form of discipline. And because he wouldn’t “dance to the tune” they were playing, they wrote him off as demon-possessed (Mt 11:18).[2] On the other hand, Jesus came and lived life and laughed and welcomed all kinds of people, and, perhaps worst of all, shared meals with so-called “sinners.” Because of that, they wrote him off as a “glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners” (Mt 11:19).

Here’s the problem with making religion about following the rules: we always wind up making ourselves the measure of all things spiritual. Like the crowds responding to John and Jesus, we condemn those who are too conservative in our eyes, and then we turn around and condemn those who are too liberal. But the hard truth is that making yourself the measure of all things spiritual boils down to appointing ourselves as the official rule-makers. And in the process, we make religion into something oppressive. For ourselves, and for others. In contrast to all that, Jesus announced that he had come to set people free from their burdens. He came to free people who, no matter how hard they tried, could never live up to the religious rule-makers’ demands. But he also came to free the rule-makers, because what gets hidden beneath the façade of a “holier than thou” attitude is the lingering doubt about whether you can ever fulfill all the rules perfectly.

I think we see some of that burden in St. Paul’s anguish over his inability to keep the law. In our lesson from Romans for today, he talks about the freedom that comes from letting go the effort to control all things spiritual and letting those things rest in God’s hands, which is where they belong. I’ll be the first to say that Paul’s teaching about sin and the law in this chapter is another example of the challenge we face when we try to read Paul’s letters: it gets really confusing really fast! But I think the main point of what he’s trying to say is that any means we can come up with by which we try to attain a “righteousness” of our own making is doomed to fail!

The logic of Paul’s argument here is complicated, and it’s difficult to sort out. But I think it points to the truth that all our efforts to serve God in our own strength are flawed. All of it comes under the heading of “religion”, and religion can only remind us of how far we fall short.[3] It’s no wonder Paul is torn—not just about the fact that his own conscience is guilty, but because he recognizes that anything he could possibly do to gain eternal life by his own effort is ultimately futile. The only way to find freedom is to turn to Jesus Christ. That’s where Paul winds up: “I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question? The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different” (Rom 7:24-25, MSG). I think that sums it up pretty well.

The truth is that we will always struggle with “this life of contradictions” as Gene Peterson puts it in The Message translation. And all too often, we respond to the frustration of trying to practice our religion on our own by simply trying harder. When we do, it all becomes a burden that’s too heavy for any of us to bear. More than that, this approach to religion brings with it other burdens. There’s the fear that what we do may never be good enough. Sometimes we convert our frustration and fear into anger. And we take it out on those we think are a “threat” to us. The final burden is pride. When you put it all together, it’s all too heavy for any of us to bear.

At the end of the day, as Paul recognized, the only path to freedom from these burdens is through God’s love for us in Jesus Christ. That’s where the wisdom of “Let go and let God” comes in. When we try to control our lives, we take on a burden that will crush anyone who tries to carry it. The wisdom of the ages has taught us that the burdens that we carry only trap us in prisons of our own making. Jesus said come to me, lay down your burdens, and I will give you rest. Of course, that’s not something we do once, and call it good. Sometimes, it’s something we have to do every day: come to Jesus, lay down our burdens, and accept the rest he offers. Sometimes we may have do that multiple times a day. When we let go our own efforts to please God by ourselves, to make our lives turn out the way we want, we can lay down the frustration and fear and anger and pride that burden us. When we let God be the one on whom we depend for everything, not only salvation and eternity but also today and tomorrow, we can open our hearts to receive the joy, and love, and life, and rest that Jesus promises.

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[1] © 2026 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm on 7/5/2026 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] Douglas Hare, Matthew 123-24.

[3] Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, 252: when we undertake this effort on our own, “we do but display the catastrophe of human impotence in the things of God.”

All We Have

All We Have

Mark 12:38-44[1]

It’s not hard to see how much we as a people are preoccupied with our possessions. Especially at this time of the year. We’re already being bombarded by advertisements that seek to convince us that we don’t already have enough to be content. We need that newer TV, or that nicer car, or the latest and best electronic gadget. It’s the way our economy functions. It thrives when we go out and do our “due diligence” as consumers. That means spending money on more “stuff” at a rate that keeps the economy humming along nicely. We even have an index to measure this behavior: we call it “consumer confidence.” If we are “confident” consumers, we’re going to go out and spend our money on more things.

It seems to me that may be one of obvious ways in which our society fails to understand prosperity. Spending money becomes the measure of how well we’re doing. That we’re spending money on things we very likely don’t need doesn’t come into the picture. Nor does anyone stop to wonder whether all that spending is really a measure of our “confidence,” or a measure of our personal dissatisfaction with our lives. It seems to me that when we’re truly “confident,” we’re content with what we have, and we don’t need to go out and spend a lot of money on things we don’t need and may not even really want!

Our Gospel lesson for today throws the issue of wealth into the spotlight in a way that might seem rather uncomfortable. Jesus criticized some of the religious leaders who were so driven by their own conceit that they made an effort to look impressive with their beautiful robes and their “presence” in worship. He made it clear that it was all for show. He said that their “long prayers” were simply “for the sake of appearance” (Mk.12:40). In other words, they wanted to look like they were spiritual. But the fact that their real agenda was about themselves was revealed by the indictment Jesus made that they were defrauding some of the most vulnerable people in their society. It seems clear where their hearts really were—wrapped up in their own self-interest, their own image, and their own greed.

Jesus exposed the hypocrisy of the prominent people in the community as well. When he was at the Temple, watching the crowd making their contributions to that vast institution, it was apparent that there were “many rich people” who “put in large sums” (Mk. 12:41). He then contrasted the paltry contribution of a poor widow: she “put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny” (Mk. 12:42). But Jesus made the point clear: “all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on” (Mk. 12:44).

What may not be obvious on the surface of things is that the Greek phrase that is translated “all she had to live on” could also be rendered as “her whole life.” Perhaps she had reached the place where she had exhausted her own resources, and she was offering herself completely to God, trusting him to care for her needs. The irony is that, from Jesus’ perspective, her gift was more substantial than all the “large sums” the others gave. More than that, she embodied the kind of attitude that Jesus sought from all those who would follow him: that we surrender all that we are and all that we have to God.

The Scriptures and the Christian tradition are consistent on this matter: there is something about wealth that has a way of taking over your heart and life. Jesus said it this way: “you cannot serve God and wealth” (Matt. 6:24). Jesus knew what escapes us so easily: our possessions have a powerful way of “possessing” us. Throughout the ages the antidote to this problem has been to place all we have at the service of God’s kingdom. The traditional term for that attitude toward possessions is “hospitality.” It speaks of a level of generosity that is ready and willing to share all we have with those around us, especially those in need.

While there are lots of practical reasons for giving, I don’t think that’s what Jesus was most concerned about in this setting. It seems to me that he was more concerned with what wealth does to us. From that perspective, giving is a spiritual discipline that enables us to remain fully human in the midst of this world and its goods. Practicing generosity may be the only way for us manage to keep from losing ourselves in our possessions while we live in a world where we have so much wealth. If you wonder whether this may be a problem for you, Richard Foster offers a fairly simple test: select your most cherished possession, and then begin to look for an opportunity to give it away. If that’s doesn’t come easily, I think you’re in good company.

In our society, wealth is not only something we desire, it’s a necessity for retirement! If that’s not difficult enough, our consumer-driven economy makes it almost impossible to avoid the pitfalls of our affluence. If we’re honest I think we all have to admit that we can get quite attached to our “stuff.” And all of this can leave us quite blind to what our wealth does to us and our humanity. The discipline of giving is a means of reminding ourselves that that we are all dependent on God for all of life, just like the widow in our lesson. More than that, we practice the discipline of giving so that we can free ourselves from the fetters of our possessions. And we do that by surrendering all that we have to God.

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[1] ©2018 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 11/11/2018 at Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

Giving Up

Giving Up

Philippians 2:1-13[1]

I would say that we spend a great deal of effort these days trying to hold onto our expectations of what we want our lives to look like. This goes beyond the drive to make sure we have the basic needs of life. I think most of us enter the adult phase of our lives with an “ideal” or a “dream” of how we want our lives to unfold. Unfortunately, for many of us, life has a way of thwarting that ideal. Instead of living the life we’ve always wanted, we may find ourselves sitting among the pieces of our broken dreams. And the tragedy is that we’re taught to succeed in life, not to lose. Most of us don’t really know what to do with ourselves when we lose.

I would say that the typical response to this kind of experience is that we simply tighten our grip on life. We seem to think that if we hold on tighter we can keep the pieces of our life from slipping through our grasp. But that’s not how life works. Our lives seem to take a course of their own, and when we try to swim against the stream, we only succeed in making ourselves miserable. No amount of effort will enable us to control the outcomes in our lives. But this points us to one of the deeper ironies of life. It’s only when we take the risk of giving up our expectations that we can truly find the peace, contentment, and even joy that we were looking for in the first place.

I think that’s a part of what St. Paul is trying to get across in our lesson from Philippians for today. He uses the example of Jesus Christ humbling himself and literally giving up everything for us to urge the Christians of his day to adopt that way of living themselves. I believe he knew that he was asking them to do the hardest thing they would probably face in their lives. But from St. Paul’s point of view, Jesus’ sacrifice of himself for us demands of us nothing less than giving up our selfish and self-centered ways.

Paul puts it this way: “If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, … Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others” (Phil. 2:1, 3-4). As usual, I like the way Gene Peterson puts it in The Message: “If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, … Don’t push your way to the front; .... Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. ... Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.” That means “having the same attitude that Christ Jesus had” (Phil. 2:5, NLT). It means following Jesus like you really mean it!

I think that the key to all of this is a matter of being willing to surrender the illusions we cherish of being able to control our lives. Those illusions keep us closed in, head down, and shoulders hunched as continue chasing pavements that lead us nowhere. I agree with Richard Rohr that surrender involves three aspects of our identity: “our opinionated head, our closed-down heart, and our defensive and defended body.”^[2] We have to surrender the willfulness of thinking we know what’s best for us. We have to surrender the hardness with which we surround our hearts to keep them from getting hurt. And we have to surrender all of our efforts to defend ourselves against anything that would keep us from getting the life we’ve always wanted.

 That may sound rather depressing to some of us. It might seem like we’re supposed to give up all our hopes and dreams if we’re going to follow Jesus. But when we have no more hopes and dreams for life, it’s easy to fall into despair. I don’t think that’s what St. Paul had in mind. Rather, I think he had in mind embracing a different vision for our lives than the one the vast majority of the human family has always followed. Instead of seeking our own advantage no matter whom we may hurt, St. Paul held up the image of Jesus as an example of a life that “serves others no matter how much it costs.”^[3] I think Paul knew that the lesson of the cross is that not only is God’s strength manifested in weakness, but also God’s life is manifested in death. And he knew that it is only by following Jesus’ example of serving others that we can find our true lives. He knew that the only way to have the life we’ve always wanted is to give up our wants and at times even our needs for the sake of serving others.

We’re not really geared towards giving up anything. Most of us will keep trying as long as we can, even if it means we wind up beating our heads against a wall. And we think of our Christian faith as a way to get what we want out of life. Dietrich Bonhoeffer reminds us that pretending to follow Christ without being willing to sacrifice ourselves and serve others cheapens God’s grace. By contrast, he says that the grace offered to us in Jesus is “costly” because “it costs people their lives; it is grace because it thereby makes them live.”^[4] Following Christ demands that we give up our own wants, hopes, and dreams in order to serve others. That may sound like a raw deal. But in fact, when we actually make the choice to follow Jesus in that way, we learn that we truly find what we’ve always wanted in life only by giving it up.

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[1] ©2017 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 10/1/2017 at Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] Richard Rohr, Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps, 8.

[3] David Garland, Mark, 335.

[4] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship, 45.

Forgetting Ourselves

Forgetting Ourselves

Philippians 2:1-13[1]

I find it interesting that the people who study social trends in our culture identified the generation that came of age in the 1980’s as the “me generation.” After the oil shortages of the late 70’s ended, the decade of the 80’s was a time of unprecedented prosperity for many in our country. What were once luxuries became necessities. More and more homes had microwave ovens and personal computers. Cars became increasingly more “loaded” with features, which also “loaded” the price tag. For the first time, “Upward Mobility” became clearly visible, as couples with two careers and no children began buying cars and houses that were more expensive than anything their parents ever dreamed of owning. There were a lot of people living “Life in the Fast Lane.”[2]

And yet, I’m not sure calling that age group the “me generation” is fair. Yes, it was an age of excess, but I think to some extent they got a bad rap. It seems to me the truth is that every generation has its own version of self-serving behaviors. We may not acknowledge that our actions are self-serving, even to ourselves. But the sages and prophets throughout the centuries have been able to see through our disguises and have pointed out that being self-serving is fundamental to the nature of what it means to be human. They’ve done so, and they’ve called us to a different way of living, a way defined by setting aside our selfish obsessions and serving others.

I believe that’s a major part of what St. Paul was telling the believers at Philippi in our lesson for today. He used the example of Jesus humbling himself, emptying himself, ultimately giving up his life for us all as the pattern for the kind of “mindset” that defines the Christian life.[3] And on the basis of Christ’s example, he called those who professed to follow him to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil. 1:12). That may sound strange to those of us who are used to hearing that salvation is a gift from God. But I think what St. Paul had in mind was that our salvation is a process by which we are continually being conformed to the character that Jesus Christ exhibited in his life.

If you’re wondering what that looks like, I think Paul answers that question at the very beginning of the lesson. I like the way Gene Peterson puts it in The Message: “If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care--then do me a favor: ... Don’t push your way to the front; .... Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. ... Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand” (Phil. 2:1-4). When you hear it that way, it sounds like quite a challenge!

So, if the sages and prophets are right in pointing out that we all are fundamentally self-serving, then how do we accomplish this feat of “forgetting ourselves,” or “putting ourselves aside”? It might seem like that kind of conversion, a transformation that runs to the very core of our being, would be impossible for us to achieve. Who of us ever really ever gets past our selfishness? And yet, even in the midst of the challenge Paul proposes, he reminds us that “it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13). Or as the Contemporary English Version puts it: “God is working in you to make you willing and able to obey him.” In other words, salvation is still something God does in us, even when it comes to “forgetting ourselves” and serving others. It is God’s marvelous and mysterious work of “conforming us to the image of His Son” (Rom. 8:29).[4]

And yet, even though this is God’s work in us, we still have a part in “working out our own salvation.” Some call our part in this ongoing conversion process “becoming what you are in Christ.”[5] Or as another translation puts it, this is a matter of “putting into action God’s saving work in your lives” (Phil. 2:12, New Living Translation).  It is always true that salvation is a gift that comes from God’s grace and mercy. But at the same time it is also true that we have to respond to God’s grace.[6]

Again, if you’re wondering what it means to “put into action God’s saving work in your life,” then I think we have to go back to what St. Paul’s point was in the beginning. He calls us all to “put ourselves aside.” He calls us all to move beyond the selfishness that is our fundamental nature. He calls us all to get past our own self-serving behaviors. And I think the essential clue to how we do that is found in his description of what Christ did. St. Paul says that he “emptied himself” (Phil. 2:7). That might make it as clear as mud for many of you. Just how does one “empty oneself”? In Jesus’ case, he did so by surrendering his rights and claims and giving his life for us all.[7]

I think that the key to all of this is a matter of surrender.[8] At some point in life, if we’re going to get past our inherent selfishness, we have to surrender. We have to surrender what we think we want out of life. We have to surrender the willfulness of thinking we should get our own way. That opens up the door for us to be grateful for life as it is. It makes it possible for us to be thankful for the new life God is working out in us continually. And it seems to me that when we become grateful people, then we can follow Christ’s example in the way we live and interact with those around us. Then we can “put into action God’s saving work in our lives.” Then we can “forget ourselves” and serve others.

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[1] ©2014 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 9/28/2014 at Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] For further details, see the Wikipedia article, “Me Generation”; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_generation. The phrase “Life in the Fast Lane” is the title of a song recorded by The Eagles on the album “Hotel California,” Asylum Records, 1976

[3] Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, 2.1:517; 4.1:635.  Cf. also Jürgen Moltman, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, 103, where he describes this in terms of “selfless service” that follows the example of Jesus’ sacrifice. See also Morna Hooker, “The Letter to the Philippians,” New Interpreters Bible XI:499, where she points out that this kind of humility was not viewed as a virtue in the Greco-Roman world, but rather as a kind of servility.

[4] Cf. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship (DBW 4), 282: “To those who have heard the call to be disciples of Jesus Christ is given the incomprehensibly great promise that they are to become like Christ. They are to bear his image as the brothers and sisters of the firstborn Son of God. To become like Christ--that is what disciples are ultimately destined to become.”

[5] Cf. Morna Hooker, “The Letter to the Philippians,” New Interpreters Bible XI:499

[6] Cf. Hooker, “Letter to the Philippians,” NIB XI:512: in Phil. 2:5-11 Paul outlines “the gracious action of God in Christ, but that gracious action demands a response—what Paul elsewhere describes as ‘the obedience of faith’ (Rom 1:5). The Philippians are to complete what God has done by living it out in their own lives.”

[7] Jesus’ ultimate surrender came in facing his impending death with the prayer “Not my will but thine be done,” and by dying with the prayer, “Into your hands I commend my spirit,” both of which reflect ultimate trust in God. Cf. James L. Mays, Psalms, 144, where he paraphrases the latter prayer as “it is up to you, God, what becomes of me, and I am willing to have it so.” Cf. also Gerald F. Hawthorne, Philippians, 122: Jesus’ whole life “was characterized by self-surrender, self-renunciation, and self-sacrifice.” Cf. further Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, 360.

[8] Cf. John Caputo, On Religion, 9, where he observes that our encounter with God moves us “beyond the sphere in which we have some mastery….” Cf. also Richard Rohr, Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps, 8:  “To finally surrender ourselves to healing, we have to have three spaces opened up within us--and all at the same time: our opinionated head, our closed-down heart, and our defensive and defended body.” Cf. further Paul F. Knitter, Without Buddha I Could not Be a Christian, 185-86.

By What Right?

“By What Right?”

Philippians 2:5-11; Lk. 22:39-46[1]

It may surprise you to know that “human rights” as we understand them are a relatively recent concept. At least if you apply them to all people. There are many precedents for our understanding of human rights throughout history. The Athenians practiced a form of democracy in the days of Socrates, 500 years before Christ. Of course, it didn’t do Socrates a lot of good!

Long before our founding fathers endorsed the idea that “all men are created equal” and that “they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain inalienable rights,” King John was forced to sign the Magna Charta in 1215, which among other things granted the right of habeas corpus limiting the authorities’ power to imprison a person and paved the way for the English parliament. None of which prevented King Edward from torturing and executing William Wallace in 1305 and hoisting his head on a pike atop London Bridge!

Even when Thomas Jefferson penned the immortal words of the Declaration of Independence, it’s quite clear that he didn’t share our understanding of human rights. He didn’t believe that all human beings are endowed with inalienable rights. And they probably assumed as well that the rights they so eloquently claimed for themselves did not apply to men who owned no land, or to women, or to children, and of course not to slaves. In fact, the history of the “American Experiment,” is one in which our society has faced internal conflicts and even civil war over the extent to which these “inalienable rights” belonged to slaves, women, and children. The struggle for true justice, equality and liberty goes on!

The point is that “human rights” as we understand them are a relatively recent development. If we transport ourselves back to the day Jesus died, we have to understand that he died as a man who had little or no claim to “human rights.” Jewish law certainly provided for human dignity, but the Romans were in charge, and they had no respect for the conquered peoples they ruled! So we have to understand that, in Judea under Roman rule, there were no civil rights lawyers to whom Mary could go to stop the execution of her son. Habeas corpus wouldn’t exist for another thousand years!

We may ask, “By what right did Pilate have Jesus executed?” And the question would be a fair one. After all, Jesus was not a revolutionary or a criminal. He was not even Pilate’s “enemy.” So by what right did Pilate have Jesus crucified? By the right of every army occupying conquered territory—the right of the sword!

And yet when we look at Jesus, we see a man not frantically clamoring for his rights, shouting about the injustice, screaming for his fellow Jews to riot because their council had falsely accused him! No, we see Jesus resolutely facing his destiny. In fact, Paul defines Jesus’ whole life prior to his death on the cross as an act of continuous humiliation! And Paul says that Jesus embraced this humiliation willingly. He “emptied” himself; he chose this path, Paul implies, from his heavenly home prior to the incarnation.

Luke’s Gospel reminds us that this was not a matter of being oblivious to the horror of crucifixion. The scene in the garden of Gethsemane makes clear that Jesus was filled with anguish at the thought of his impending death.[2] Only Luke includes the statement that Jesus was sweating so profusely as he prayed it was as if someone had opened one of his arteries! But the overriding factor for Jesus on that night in the garden was that he entrusted himself to the living God. He asked to be spared the anguish, but his final answer was, “not my will, but thine be done.”

Perhaps the most amazing factor in Jesus’ death was that at the point of his greatest sacrifice, at the point of his death on the cross as a blasphemer, a criminal, a god-forsaken sinner, Jesus is most at one with the Father’s will.[3] In the experience of god-forsakenness that Jesus undergoes on the cross, it is not simply the case that God abandons him. Jesus’ willing surrender of himself is in reality the completion of God’s self-giving love from all eternity. It is there that Jesus reveals God as a God of love who pours himself out, who takes on all the pain and suffering of the world, in order that we might be set free from pain and sorrow and god-forsakenness to love God.[4] Jesus’ willing surrender to the suffering of the cross is in reality the fulfillment of God’s suffering love for us all.[5]

We’ve been talking about Lent as a time of reorienting our lives toward God. When we see Jesus in Gethsemane, we see a man who shows us what it means to orient our lives completely to God’s will. He surrenders all his rights, he surrenders his very life! That’s why Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane is at the heart of Christian discipleship. When we have learned the lesson of Lent, we too will pray, “not my will but thine be done.”

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[1] A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 4/1/07 at First Presbyterian Church, Dickinson, TX.

[2] J. Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom, 76-80.

[3] Moltman, Trinity, 82.

[4] Moltmann, Trinity, 82-83, 117-19. Cf. Study Catechism, q. 45: “An abyss of suffering” has been “swallowed up by the suffering of divine love.”

[5] J. Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ, 172-78.