hope reborn

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Quiet MY Soul A LENTEN DEVOTIONAL WEEK FOUR | HOPE REBORN

Quiet MY Soul

A L E N T E N D EVOTI O NAL WEEK FOUR | HOPE REBORN

© 2018 Calvary Memorial Church 931 Lake Street, Oak Park, Illinois. All rights reserved.

Scripture Quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by Permission. All rights reserved.

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HUMILITY AND SUBMISSION Is there ambition in my heart? Search, gracious God, and see; Or do I act a haughty part? Lord, I appeal to thee. I charge my thoughts, be humble still, And all my carriage mild, Content, my Father, with thy will, And quiet as a child. The patient soul, the lowly mind, Shall have a large reward: Let saints in sorrow lie resigned, And trust a faithful Lord.

ISAAC WATTS

PREFACE “God comes all sweetness to your Lenten lips.” Gerard Manley Hopkins, “Easter Communion” The great salvation we celebrate during Holy Week comes with a cost. A cost to God, of course, in the gift of his only Begotten Son. But it also comes at a cost to us. Salvation is a free gift, but it cannot be received with a closed fist. We cannot cling tenaciously to the false hopes of the world while receiving the hope of eternal life. To cling to Christ in faith is to give up on false gods and false hopes. Letting go in anticipation of receiving is what Lent is all about. The season of Lent is an invitation to slow down, reflect, and prepare to celebrate the life changing, history altering events of Holy Week. Lent is a reminder that the gift of Christ is not received with a closed hand, but in openness and humbleness before God. Just as Christ spent forty days in the wilderness in preparation for his public ministry, so too, the Christian liturgical calendar invites Christians around the world to follow in the footsteps of Christ. Like our Lord, the season of Lent calls us to a time of preparation, of self-denial, and a renewed recognition of our dependence upon our Heavenly Father for all things. In Lent we are reminded that man does not live on the bread the world gives, but by the Word of God who is for us the true Bread of Life. As Calvary enters into a corporate and personal season of reflection through the Antioch Process, it is fitting that our church’s season of reflection overlaps with the traditional season of Lent. We want to know what God has in store for us. We want to know how he would have us use our talents, our gifts, our passions in this place, at this time. But we can’t hear from God if our ears are overrun by the noise and cluttering sounds of the world. We need to quiet our souls in preparation to hear the word the Lord will speak to us; to hear the word the Lord is perhaps already speaking to us but that we have been too preoccupied to hear. Learning to hear requires learning to rest. And learning to rest requires us to trust in the God who meets all of our needs.

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HOPE REBORN CREATED TO NEED God has made us to be dependent creatures. (Can creatures be made any other way?) We are fundamentally and inherently needy. Every particularity of human need can be summed up under five core needs: the need for dignity, love, a sense of purpose, hope, and physical safety. These are not negotiable for the human being. We need these things as certainly as we need the air we breathe. God has determined it so. To deny a person love or dignity, or a sense of purpose, is to deny a person an intrinsic aspect of their humanity. But as dependent creatures, we are not able to generate these five core needs. Our ultimate dignity, need for love, sense of purpose, hope, and physical safety must necessarily come from outside of ourselves. Our temptation, of course, is to supply these five needs through the things of the world. We look to sex to meet our deep need to be loved. We look to our careers to meet our deep need for dignity and respect. We rely upon exercise and dieting to meet our need for physical well-being. We look to our children to provide a sense of purpose. We depend upon our retirement account as our hope for the future. All of these are fine as pointers to our ultimate hope. But the things of this world cannot meet the deepest needs of our souls. The stark reality of death is the ultimate reminder that everything in this world will one day slip through our grasp. The desperation we feel when these needs are threatened drives us forward into restless (and often reckless) activity. When our anxieties spur us on in a flurry of activity and noise, we lose the capacity to hear from the Lord. We are no longer led by his voice because our growing panic overwhelms our senses and sets our soul in turmoil. If we would hear from the Lord, we must learn to lay aside our fears and embrace a posture of quiet trust.

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PREFACE QUIET MY SOUL Lent is a reminder that we stand in need of things that the world is unable to supply. It is an invitation to return to the truth that we stand in need of God’s help, and that he has promised to supply it. In Psalm 131, the Psalmist poignantly captures the Lenten posture. “O Lord, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high I do not occupy myself with things too great for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me. O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore.” Lent is an invitation to cease striving. In the spirit of the psalmist, we must humble ourselves, let go of vain ambition, calm and quiet our souls, and put our hope in the Lord. Lent reminds us that our ultimate hope for our deepest needs can only be found in the covenantal love of God expressed to us in Christ and sealed by the Holy Spirit. It is only when we are in the Lenten posture, trusting in the Lord, “like a weaned child with its mother” that we are able to quiet our souls and open ourselves to hear the voice of God.

FACING OUR FEARS This Lenten devotional invites us to face our fears and to quiet our souls with respect to the five core human needs: our need for dignity, love, purpose, hope, and safety. Each week of the devotional will challenge us to think about how we are made for these things, how we lost them in the garden, how we strive in human effort to reclaim them, and how the promises of God through Christ calms our fears and allows us to quiet our souls. Each week of the devotional guide will follow the same pattern:

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HOPE REBORN SUNDAY | WHAT WE NEED MONDAY | WHAT WE LOST TUESDAY | HOW WE TRY TO COPE WEDNESDAY | THE FUTILITY OF HUMAN STRIVING THURSDAY | FASTING & REPENTANCE FRIDAY | EMBRACING THE SALVATION OF GOD SATURDAY | RESTING IN THE PROMISE OF GOD Do not rush quickly through the reflection questions. Take time to prayerfully consider what you truly believe about yourself, your world, and your God—not what you know you are supposed to believe, but what you truly do believe. As we learn to trust in God for meeting our every need, we are able to quiet our souls and prepare ourselves to hear from our Lord. May this season of Lent be an occasion for Calvary Memorial Church, and for each of us who call Calvary home, to lay aside our fears and anxieties, to trust in the provision of our Lord, and to quiet our souls. Bleating, panicking sheep cannot hear the voice of the shepherd. Crying, restless children cannot hear the soothing voice of the mother. May we come to hear in the quietness of rest the voice of our Heavenly father, and so come to find what God has in store for us.

FASTING Throughout Lent we are inviting the congregation to fast each Thursday. Following Jesus’ example during his forty days of fasting in the wilderness, fasting is a recognition of our innate dependence upon God, a way of reminding ourselves that what we ultimately need comes from the Lord. Indeed, what we need is God himself. Each person can determine for themselves how to fast (or if to fast at all). Fasting can be as basic as skipping a single meal, or can encompass the whole day. If fasting is not realistic for you because of health reasons, perhaps there is something else basic to your daily needs that you can forgo as a way of reminding yourself that your ultimate needs are met in God.

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WEEK FOUR | HOPE REBORN

WEEK FOUR | INTRODUCTION HOPE REBORN

O

ur life is precious. When we are healthy, and everything is going well, we frequently take life for granted. Yet, everyone has those dark nights of the soul—those moments when we feel the impending sense of life’s fragility. These instances remind us that life and hope are bound up in one another. When we have life, we have hope. However, the notion of death causes us to shudder with despair. We medicate ourselves from despair and the inevitability of death by amusing ourselves, distracting ourselves, and turning to substitutes that promise to prolong life—all with the aim of managing the terror of death. Unfortunately, these substitutes utterly fall short in the end. We wake in the morning realizing that we rise slower than we did during our younger days. We feel aches where aches were once not. We recognize that our mind is not as sharp as it once was. We are left with the daunting prospect that life is brief and fleeting. Then comes the finality of death. This week’s devotional beckons you to explore where you rest your hope. If we are not alert, we will deceive ourselves into placing our hope in dead ends. Rather than having victory in God, we risk being defeated by death. However, if we place our hope in the One— who did not avert death, but passed into death and then out again—we then have a ballast upon which to secure our hope.

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HOPE REBORN SCRIPTURE

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hen the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

GENESIS 2:7-9

EXPOSITION

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od gave humanity life and then a home in Eden and placed them in it. The garden is formed beautifully with trees pleasing to the eye, and the garden functions practically providing nourishing food and the oxygen necessary to sustain breath of life. In the midst of the garden is the tree of life, the fruit of which promises forever life. Peace and security come through this provision, and with this Adam and Eve were never without hope for their future.

WISDOM

“B ”

ut he who is joined with all the living has hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion.

SOLOMON, ECCLESIASTES 9:4 2

SUNDAY | WHAT WE NEED REFLECTION

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ife and hope are indelibly connected, and the source of both is the Lord God. Where there is life, there is hope, and having perpetual life fosters a sense of perpetual hope. Regardless of how noble, refined, or successful we are—it is life that gives and provides hope. Take the potential of life away and all we have is despair.

How does recognizing that life and hope are tied to one another affect the kinds of things that you prioritize as your provisions for hope? In what ways is hope a necessity for our existence as mortal human beings?

PRAYER

L

ord God, your blessing over Adam and Eve in Genesis 1:22 is a reminder that you are a God whose favor and love is abundant. You give life out of a sense of generosity; you sustain life by and through love. I have physical needs which you have met for my flourishing and ongoing life. Yet, my life is more than material because you ensouled me with your breath. Thus, I require more than physical food and comforts to sustain me. I have a spiritual hunger that is only met and nourished by your hand and satisfying this hunger is necessary to sustain my being and life. I confess that hope is a necessity for the sake of my physical and spiritual well-being. Help me to consider where I place my hope and what I make necessary to gain it. Amen.

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HOPE REBORN SCRIPTURE

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hen the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

GENESIS 3:22-24

EXPOSITION

W

hen Adam and Eve distrusted and disobeyed God’s word to them, the consequence was severe. The first children of God were driven out from the garden and God’s presence, and they were fenced from the tree of life. In their fall, they lost access to the lifegiving tree. They had to come to terms with the reality that they were cut off from the hope of life offered in the garden, and they now faced the certainty and inevitability of death.

WISDOM

“T

here was no hope of our ever obtaining for ourselves this eternal life and blessedness after we had fallen. When we fell we not only were driven away from all that blessedness that we did enjoy, but lost all that which we had so fair an opportunity of obtaining.

”

JONATHAN EDWARDS, “EAST OF EDEN” A SERMON ON GENESIS 3:24 4

MONDAY | WHAT WE LOST REFLECTION

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ife is derived from God and found only in God’s presence. Since life and hope are bound up in one another, when one is lost so is the other. Simultaneously, humanity lost access to both life and hope in the fall. Driven out from God’s presence, humanity then finds itself in a place where death and despair reign.

In what circumstances have you felt hopeless? Was there a particular time when you recognized death’s reign in this world? How did you respond? How do the realities of death and even a sense of despair bear out in your life up to this point?

PRAYER

G

uardian of Life, you are not capricious nor ruthless to have fenced off the tree of life from me. If I were to reach out to take its fruit in my fallen state, I would become a monster and not a minister, a devil and not a disciple. The path I trudge outside the garden is a necessary one to return to Eden. It’s a path that brings me not to the garden’s edge but to death’s hollow, and I like every other human who has gone before must pass through this wood. I do not know the number of my days, but I know to number them. Would you give me the strength to walk into this hollow when it is time and to die well? Amen.

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HOPE REBORN SCRIPTURE

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ow Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said to Abram, “Behold now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Go in to my servant; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. So, after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abram her husband as a wife. And he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress. And Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my servant to your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May the Lord judge between you and me!” But Abram said to Sarai, “Behold, your servant is in your power; do to her as you please.” Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her.

GENESIS 16:1-6

EXPOSITION

I

n the Ancient Near East, being barren and without an heir did more than bring shame upon a family. It condemned a family to oblivion. Rather than believe God’s promise for an heir, Abram and Sarai resorted to their own means to secure hope and slip past death’s grip. Yet their design to manage mortality made matters worse. Hagar’s provision of an heir filled her with pride and empowered her to scorn Sarai. Bigamy introduced into the home dysfunction and muddled Abram and Sarai’s marriage. Sarai eventually drove Hagar from the shelter of Abram’s tent, which would have handed Hagar over to death had not God met Hagar in the moment of her despair and delivered her and Ishmael (cf. Gen. 21).

WISDOM

“O

h Theseus, dear friend, only the gods can never age, the gods can never die. All else in the world almighty time obliterates, crushes all to nothing. The earth’s strength wastes away.

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SOPHOCLES, OEDIPUS AT COLONUS 6

TUESDAY | HOW WE TRY TO COPE REFLECTION

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e attempt to circumvent despair and dodge death in many ways. This is because death is a terror. We pass on ourselves and our legacy to our children, as if this is a passable surrogate for immortality. If we are childless, we consign whatever empire we have built or wisdom we have accumulated to an entrusted pupil. Perhaps we achieve enough to leave a carbon footprint by having a building or a foundation named after ourselves. If we’re honest, we fear being forgotten; being forgotten is annihilation. This notion darkens our thoughts. These faint attempts at preserving hope denote our universal struggle and failure to elude mortality.

How has the terror of death driven your life? How have you preserved your memory, passed on your legacy, maintained your dynasty, protected your empire? Do you think these are attempts to extend your life beyond the grave? Why or why not?

PRAYER

H

eavenly Father, I have made many attempts to amuse myself and distract myself from the inevitable. I will die. This ultimate reality terrifies me. I’ve seen how death has struck close at hand in my life, and so I have stabbed back with various measures to cope with the harrowing prospect of death. It is apparent that my current coping mechanism is not a sustainable way to manage the impending trauma of death and its resultant finality. Would you point me to a better way? Amen.

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HOPE REBORN SCRIPTURE

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ou return man to dust and say, “Return, O children of man!” For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night. You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning: in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers . . . The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.

PSALM 90:3-6, 10

EXPOSITION

N

ot only is death incontrovertible. Life is momentary. Regardless of how much time we have to cherish our days, there are just not enough of them. They run out. The brief bits of hope that we latch onto ultimately flitter out with our last dying breath.

WISDOM

“H

ere is the history of the grass—sown, grown, blown, mown, gone; and the history of man is not much more.

”

CHARLES SPURGEON, TREASURY OF DAVID, PSALM 90 8

WEDNESDAY | THE FUTILITY OF HUMAN STRIVING REFLECTION

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ry as we may, we cannot work our way around death. It catches up to each of us. Our lives are fleeting and even our best exertions fail to deliver us from perishing. Our hope cannot be wrapped up in prolonging our days because they will end regardless of how effective or advanced our techniques are for extending life. Diet, exercise, supplements, medications, surgery—all aim to prolong life, and they may work for a bit, but death claims all. No amount of money and no development in technology can bypass death. It is the grand equalizer that claims every person from every social rung of society. Like a quick breath that kills a lit candle, life’s brevity snuffs out hope.

How have your exertions to prevent your own mortality failed you? How have distractions, pleasures, or leisures floundered in providing a cathartic role to assuage your terror of death?

PRAYER

A

ll Knowing One, teach me to number my days and to regard each day as a gift from your hand. Help me to see that it is a vain pursuit to extend my life beyond your plan. I cannot thwart your providence. I not only know my mortality. I feel it. I have been cut and bruised. I have been broken and battered. My body has ached. I have had restless nights. The signs of my mortality remind me to look outward of myself for hope and life. Would you show me that gift that comes from without and is my only avenue for hope and deliverance from death? Amen.

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HOPE REBORN SCRIPTURE

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hese all look to you, to give them their food in due season. When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things. When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. When you send forth your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground.

PSALM 104:27-30

EXPOSITION

A

ll good things come from God’s hand. Yet, God’s favor has conditions. He provides for us, but he may also turn his favor from us. This most often happens when we have not trusted his Word or his provision, just as the case with Adam and Eve. Regardless, every breath is a gift from God, and he is sovereign over each one. When our body exhales that last time, we return to the dust from which we came. The very nature of these realities make hope tenuous.

WISDOM

“B

ut people who put everything they have at risk will learn what hope is when it fails them, for Hope is prodigal by nature.

THUCYDIDES, HISTORY 5.103

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THURSDAY | FASTING & REPENTANCE REFLECTION

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t is usually the good things that come from God that become a substitute for the hope of which only he may make provision. If our hope is placed in any substitute for God, then it will fail us. As long as we have breath, we have life and hope. Yet, once our breath gives out—apart from God’s grace and mercy—we experience death and decay. In order to be prepared to receive the hope that only God can provide, we must turn away from the substitutes we have put in place of his provision for life.

What “hopes” have you mistaken to be life-giving when they were actually mere substitutes? How have these “hopes” collapsed when tested? Confess to God these counterfeit hopes. Let your fast today remind you that your only hope is met in God.

PRAYER

G

iver of All Good, each good thing I have comes from your hand. Yet so often I take your lavish goodness for granted. Often, I have not credited you for these morsels of goodness. Rather, I have bought into the misconception that I have striven to gain such things. As a result of my ingratitude, I turn these things into substitutes for the hope that only you provide. I confess that I have done this, and I turn away from these ways. I see how they only lead me down a path of despair and dismay, death and decay. My God, show me my steadfast hope. Amen.

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HOPE REBORN SCRIPTURE

F

or if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

ROMANS 6:5-11

EXPOSITION

T

here is a binding effect that comes with our initiation into death when we are united to Christ. It is an indissoluble union. Passage into death is the path by which God sets us free from sin. We pass through death in order to be liberated from sin, and we emerge into new life and witness the resurrection of our hope. To be set free from sin, death, and despair is to see hope reborn. Seeing hope reborn comes by embracing God’s salvation in Jesus Christ. This unites us to Christ by faith.

WISDOM

“B

lessed is He who was pierced and so removed the sword from the entry to Paradise.

EPHREM, THE HYMNS ON PARADISE 12

”

FRIDAY | EMBRACING THE SALVATION OF GOD REFLECTION

J

esus passed through death so that we could pass through death. For it is better to pass through death than to let death be the final destination. Christ is the great trailblazer who went as a forerunner to procure salvation by resurrection. If hope is tied to life, and despair comes with death, then new hope is born again from the new life wrought in the resurrection power of Christ. Thus, our only hope in life and death is that we are not our own, but we belong to God. We must place our hope in Christ and in no other.

In what ways and circumstances has God called you to place your hope in Christ alone and in no other? How does embracing God’s way of salvation, rather than a poor substitute, renew your hope in life and death?

PRAYER

L

ord God, I am not my own but belong, body and soul, both in life and death, to you and to my savior Jesus Christ. Anchor this truth deep within my heart and help me to hold fast to it, especially when I despair and am terrorized by the prospect of death. May I praise you for the gift of your Son who unites me to himself and brings me through death and into your presence to enjoy life everlasting. Amen.

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HOPE REBORN SCRIPTURE I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 CORINTHIANS 15:50-57

EXPOSITION

W

e must perish to become imperishable, and when we do we will exchange mortality for immortality. New life in Christ is victorious life. We look on while we live in this present world with expectation and hope for the inheritance that is to come. Our inheritance is a crown of salvation that we lay at the feet of Christ because he procures our rest for us and makes good on his promise that we hang our hope on—the hope of salvation and everlasting life.

WISDOM

“D

eath, no longer envenomed by sin, is to be regarded only as a sleep, ‘a falling asleep in Jesus.’ This ‘enemy,’ this ‘king of terrors,’ is turned into a friend, and may now be numbered amongst the richest treasures of the Christian. If we view it aright, it is only a friend who comes to draw aside the veil that hides the Saviour and all his glory from our eyes.

”

CHARLES SIMEON, HORAE HOMILETICAE, 1 & 2 CORINTHIANS 14

SATURDAY | RESTING IN THE PROMISE OF GOD REFLECTION

T

he idea of everlasting life reminds us that what we have today in this world is not all there is to existence. This world will change and so shall we. We will put on an imperishable body along with immortality. Victory over death comes through Jesus Christ, and victory brings us rest. Heaven awaits our coming with jubilee, and we will inhabit it with renewed and resurrected bodies. This is our expectant hope.

In what ways do you need to rest in this promise of hope? How does this knowledge give you hope for your future?

PRAYER

V

ictorious Lord, my impulse for immortality is not irrational. It is born out of the promise that I have a King who is victorious over death and promises the same for me. My urge is to rest in the promise of the resurrection. My new birth by the power of the Holy Spirit vouchsafes that my reborn hope is sensible. Bind me deeply to these convictions so that I may have peace of mind and rest, true rest. I thank you God for devising the death of death, for bringing victory to me through Christ, and for being my provision for hope. Amen.

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