Bible Readings and Devotion for April 10, 2020
Here are the references for the readings. Please look these up in your print Bible, your smartphone app Bible, or your online Bible:
Devotion for April 10, 2020
By Pastor David Tinker
This is what I shared as part of the Good Friday service this year. This is an excerpt from a collection of Holy Week sermons by Martin Luther. It is from Martin Luther’s Easter Book, edited by the late Roland H. Bainton. Here is a link to the Amazon page to buy this book.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
The following is taken from parts of sermons by Martin Luther for Good Friday. Luther said,
“Let us now meditate a moment on the passion of Christ. Some do you so falsely in that they merely rail against Judas and the Jews. Some carry crucifixes to protect themselves from water, fire, and sword, and turn the suffering of Christ into an amulet against suffering. Some weep and that is the end of it. The true contemplation is that in which the heart is crushed and the conscience smitten. You must be overwhelmed by the frightful wrath of God who is so hated sin that he spared not his only-begotten Son. What can the sinner expect if the beloved Son was so afflicted? It must be an inexpressible and unendurable yearning that causes God’s Son himself so to suffer. Ponder this and you will tremble, and the more you ponder, the deeper you will tremble.
The whole value of the meditation of the suffering of Christ lies in this, that man should come to the knowledge of himself and sink and tremble. If you are so hardened that you do not tremble, then you have reason to tremble. Pray to God that he may soften your heart and make fruitful your meditation upon the suffering of Christ, for we ourselves are incapable of proper reflection unless God instill it.
But if one does meditate rightly on the suffering of Christ for a day, an hour, or even a quarter of an hour, this way may confidently say is better than a whole year of fasting, days of psalm singing, yes, and even one hundred masses, because this reflection changes the whole man and makes him new, as once he was in baptism.
The greater and the more wonderful is the excellence of his love by contrast with the lowliness of his form, the heat and pain of Passion. Hearin we come to know both God and ourselves. His beauty is his own and through it we learn to know him. His uncomeliness and passion are ours, and in them we know ourselves, from what he suffered in the flesh, we must inwardly suffer in the spirit. He has in truth bourn our stripes. Here, then, in an the unspeakably clear mirror you see yourself. You must know that through your sins you are as uncomely and mangled as you see him here.
If we consider the persons, we ought to suffer a thousand and again a thousand times more than Christ because he is God and we are dust and ashes, yet it is the reverse. He, who had a thousand and again a thousand times less need, has taken upon himself a thousand and again a thousand times more than we. No understanding can fathom, nor tongue can express, nor writing can record, but only the inward feeling can grasp, what is involved in the suffering of Christ.
Prayer
Almighty God, look with loving mercy on your family, for whom our Lord Jesus Christ was willing to be betrayed, to be given over to the hands of sinners, and to suffer death on the cross; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.
Prayer from Evangelical Lutheran Worship. Copyright © 2020 Augsburg Fortress. All rights reserved.
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