Why is there so much interest in violent sex? I’m not talking about rape; I’m talking about consensual sex between adults that involves pain and sometimes domination. I read two articles quite a while ago and they still have me reeling. They appeared as book reviews in The Atlantic Monthly (January/February 2011).
Christianity scandalizes the world. The cross offends (1 Cor. 1:23). But as the world changes, the cross shocks in different ways. To the Greeks, the idea that a dying man could save the world was foolishness. For the Jews, death on the cross was cursed by God. In medieval times, the idea of total forgiveness through the cross without meritorious works was unbelievable. To the modern man, it is simply irrational and unprovable.
In this Good Friday sermon, Ray Dillard sets before us the cup of God’s wrath, takes us to the cross where Jesus drank it on our behalf, and then points us to … the other cup. Dr. Ray Dillard, now with the Lord, was a beloved professor of Old Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary. He was co-author of one of the most widely-used Old Testament introductions in print.
I suppose if we were to find the passages in the Bible most familiar to us, Matthew 26:1-46 would have to rank very high among them. Jesus prepares for death. He is anointed and then betrayed. He and His disciples eat their last supper together, and bread and wine represent Jesus’ body and blood. Jesus prays in the garden. We celebrate these passages again and again in the church. We read them with some frequency. Yet I wonder how many times you have read through the account of what takes place in the garden of Gethsemane without stopping to think exactly what it was that Jesus was praying about.