APPLY BIBLE-BASED GEMs about FOLLOWING JESUS TO BE YOUR BEST SACRAMENTAL SELF!
USE BIBLE ILLUSTRATIONS as SPRINGBOARDS TO TRANSFORM YOUR MODERN-DAY OUTREACH!
Let God Expressed Meekly/Mightily in you sparkle brightly with insights from Cobbey Crisler & others as found in The Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson on
“Sacrament”
for January 3 – 9, 2022
(Cobbey’s insights are shared with the blessing of Janet Crisler janetcrisler7@gmail.com)
by Warren Huff, CedarS Executive Director Emeritus, warren@cedarscamps.org
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ACCEPT ONLY GOOD HEREDITY FROM YOUR HEAVENLY FATHER-MOTHER! [Cobbey:] “In Psalm 16:5, heredity is being dealt with in this pharmacy of the Psalms. “The LORD” is what? “The portion of mine inheritance!” Sometimes we’re proud of our inheritances. At other times, we’re ashamed of them. To anchor inheritance, heritage, and heredity in God, is, first, a radically different concept of origin, where we came from. In Verse 6 you will note that [deep] concern the psalmist [has] about hereditary limitations on his ability. Apparently, he comes to the conclusion through accepting the divine fact, the prescriptions he’s had filled, “Yea, I have a goodly heritage.” (Ps. 16:6/Responsive Reading) EXPUNGE OLD LIES – AND NEW ONES! WAKE UP TO BEING HELD BY “TENDER MERCIES!” · “according to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions” (Psalm 51:1, Responsive Reading); · “Remember, O Lord, thy tender mercies…” (Psalm 25:6); · crown me “with lovingkindness and tender mercies… unto (my) children’s children” (Ps. 103:4, 15); · let “thy tender mercies…quicken me…” (Ps. 119:156); · “let thy tender mercies speedily prevent us… and purge away our sins” (Ps. 79:8,9); and, · acknowledge “his tender mercies are over all his works… throughout all generations.” (Ps. 145:9,13) “The human history needs to be revised, and the material record expunged.” “Retrospection and Introspection,” by Mary Baker Eddy, page 22:1 “I awake each morn to a brand new day… Tender mercies are holding me” |
BE AN ANSWER TO JESUS PRAYER BY BEING A HEALER— SOLVING PROBLEMS & BRINGING IN THE HARVEST!
Cobbey Crisler on the end of Matthew chapter 9 and the start of chapter 10, citations B2 and B3
[Cobbey:] “In Matthew 9, Verse 36, Jesus is looking around him after he disposes of the Pharisaical thought— “he sees multitudes needing help, moved with compassion. There they were as sheep. They were shepherdless.”
(Verse 37). He turned to his disciples then, and his disciples in future generations, and made the remark, “The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few.” Does that imply he expected his disciples to be out there solving human problems, healing?
(Verse 38). He even asks them to “Pray the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth laborers into his harvest.”
We now come to Chapter 10. (citation B3) We’ve had so much evidence that Jesus was an effective healer, but we haven’t yet had evidence that there could be healing via the instruction-route: that could be taught to heal, sent out like apprentices in some human trade or profession, and come back practicing the rules learned with results, namely, healed cases.
We find right after the prayer (Matthew 9:38) that God “would send forth more laborers into his harvest,” and what do we find? A mandate to heal.
(Verse 1). “He called his twelve disciples, he gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, to heal” What? Only certain diseases? “All manner of disease and sickness.”
BONUS FROM VERSES LEFT OUT of the Bible Lesson this week:
[Cobbey on Verse 2:] “We have the first use of the word “apostles.” Verse 1 says “disciples,” Verse 2 says, “apostles.” There’s an interesting difference in the two terms. First, we already discussed what the Greek word for “disciple” was mathetes. This is the same root as our word “mathematician.” That still leaves us somewhat in the realm of the theoretician until we find that apostolos in Greek means “someone who is sent out to accomplish what he has learned.” Out go these apostoloi. We are given the names which are very familiar to most of us.
“In verse five, Jesus says “they are to avoid the Gentiles and Samaritans and only go to the Jews.” Don’t you think that’s rather narrow of Jesus? What do you really think characterizes this? We have Jesus’ personal instructions to his students about how to heal, whom to heal, and he says, “Don’t go to the Gentiles or the Samaritans.” On the surface, one would think it was discrimination, wouldn’t they?
But remember, this is the first pioneer movement in history to send out disciples to heal as the result of instruction. It’s the first time ever. Jesus, then, restricted their field of activity. Why? Because he felt that this is the way it should be, or to fulfill a prophecy? The Jews first and then to the Gentiles?
“Why don’t we first consider it in this view rather than discrimination on the part of Jesus, which we can rule out right away. Why? Did he have any restrictions? He healed Gentiles, didn’t he? And he healed Samaritans.
In fact, in the 4th Chapter of John (beginning Verse 7) he spends more time in talking to that woman of Samaria than he does to most of the Jews. So, it’s apparently only for them and it’s only for this particular moment. It’s a matter of timing. Who needed to have their field narrowed? Were the disciples really ready to tackle theological problems as well as heal the sick? Suppose they went into a Samaritan’s house, which they weren’t supposed to do anyway, or a Gentile’s house. Already they had an obstruction in their thought.
It would be difficult to heal with that sense of obstruction. So, isn’t Jesus saying, “Look, it’s your first assignment. I’ll make it easy on you. You don’t have to fight any theological battles. You’re going into the households of those you’ve grown up with, that agree with you on the standpoint of one God, and study the same Scriptures as you do.”
Continuing in Verse five: The disciples weren’t yet ready to go into the Samaritan’s household or the Gentile’s household to heal. That required the kind of environment as Jesus ran into when he was raising Jairus’ daughter. There he had to change the environment, [to clear out] the theological obstructions. He had to correct thought before he got a healing.
(Verse 6). So, the instructions were in the first assignment, “Go to the lost sheep of the House of Israel.”
(citation B2, Matthew 10, Verse 7). ” Look at the first words there to say. Is that a coincidence, or is that essential? Where have we run into that statement before? “… go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Who has said that already? It was Jesus’ first statement (Matthew 4:17) after “Repent.”
The assignments given to the disciples would not be assignments they were incapable of doing, or Jesus would have been unwise.
(citation B2, Matthew 10, Verse 8). He said, “Heal the sick.” What do you expect them to do? He said, “Cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, and cast out devils.” Notice the sequence. The things he did. Even putting casting-out-devils at a higher level of what was required of prayer than raising the dead. Then stating, “Freely ye have received, freely give.”
Did the disciples do that? Even after Jesus was no longer with them personally? They certainly did.
(Verse 10). He also tells them that they are to earn their living by healing because he says, “The workman is worthy of his meat.” “Don’t even take gold or silver with you” (Verse 9), “Neither extra clothing, nor suitcases. The workman is worthy of his meat.”
BONUS of more VERSES LEFT OUT of the Bible Lesson this week:
(Verse 16). Remember, we are privy here to his personal instructions to his disciples in the first assignment to go out and heal the sick. These warnings would be just as timely and relevant to those who wish to follow his instructions in our century.
“Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be wise as serpents.” The wisdom of the serpent is to hide itself. “Harmless as doves.”
(Verse 17). “But beware of men.” What he says will happen is fulfilled in the Book of Acts. His disciples are “dragged before the councils; they are scourged in the synagogues.”
(Verse 18). “They are brought before governors and kings,” Paul especially fulfills all of that.
(Verse 19). “But when they are hauled up in front of people, don’t even give any thought as to what you will say.”
(Verse 20). “Because the Spirit will put in your mouth what you need to say. It is the Spirit that will talk, not you.”
The entire chapter (to Verse 42), will take further research on your part.
(citation B2, Matthew 10, Verse 38) In verse 38, you will see where Jesus actually refers to the cross long before it occurs. “He that taketh not his cross.” That shows a foreknowledge of the crucifixion, “and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.”
BONUS of more VERSES LEFT OUT of the Bible Lesson this week:
(Verse 40). About receptivity, “He that receiveth you,” whoever is ready for what message you have,”will have no trouble receiving me. He that receiveth me will have no difficulty in receiving God.”
(Verse 41). With the characteristic emphasis on prophecy which Matthew has, “He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward.” You know what a prophet’s reward is? The fulfillment of the prophecy. He that honors prophecy will be aware when prophecy is fulfilled. The honoring of prophecy in the Scriptures is a very important point, even in the Book of Revelation. In fact, the remnant as described in the Book of Revelation are those, among other things, who have the Spirit of prophecy.
(Verse 42). He gives the last instruction before they go out to heal, “whoever will give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, he shall in no wise lose his reward.” His disciples go out.
“Book of Matthew, Auditing the Master: A Tax Collector’s Report,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
EXPECT NO HIERARCHY IN HEAVEN, NO “POLITICAL PLUMS”— BLESSINGS ARE EARNED! Cobbey Crisler notes
Jesus foretelling his crucifixion & ending any fights over chairs in heaven (Matt. 20:18-28/cit. B4):
[Cobbey:] “In Verses 18, 19 doesn’t Jesus forewarn his disciples according to this gospel’s account that the crucifixion was going to happen? Look at the details, “mock, scourge, crucify: and the third day he shall rise again.” What happens right after he tells all that?
(Verse 21) Here’s a stereotype of motherhood, saying, “I’ve got two sons, Jesus, and I’d appreciate it if you’d give them special consideration when you arrive in this location called heaven. There’s probably a chair on your right side and on your left side. I’d be very happy as a mother if my boys could be in those chairs.”
“The word got around very swiftly among the other disciples that Mom was operating on behalf of two of them.
“In very polite Elizabethan English, “they were moved with indignation.”
“(Verse 21). Jesus answer was, “Are you really able to drink of the cup that I am going to drink and be baptized with the baptism that I am going to be baptized with?” James and John, all scrubbed and clean, said, “We are able.”
“They did prove to be able later on. John becomes the last surviving disciple of the intimate group.
“(Verse 23). Jesus does say, “You will indeed drink of my cup, and be baptized with what I am baptized with, but I don’t hand out political plums. That isn’t the way heaven is arranged. It will be given to them for whom it is prepared of my Father.” That ends any thought of hierarchy in heaven. The preparation and earning factors go into it.
“Right in the middle of telling them what he was going to go through, they are fighting over chairs in heaven.”
“Book of Matthew, Auditing the Master: A Tax Collector’s Report,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
If you’re bullied or YOUR love meets “NO RESPONSE”,REMAIN LOVING like JESUS did in GETHSEMANE (cit. S12/586:23).
FIND COMFORT KNOWING THAT “… to them who love God… ALL things work together for good…” (Rom. 8:28) — even when it doesn’t look it will.
[An A.P. (Answered Prayer) History application idea from Warren Huff:]
Have you ever been bullied or treated unfairly?
I was. And, I found great, healing inspiration in Jesus’ example in Gethsemane and on the cross. Here are ideas that helped me overcome inharmony and unjust bullying in my first workplace (other than CedarS) by using Jesus’ example and Mary Baker Eddy’s spiritual definition for Gethsemane as found in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. It reads in part: “love meeting no response, but still remaining love.” (SH 586:23-25/cit. S12)
My situation was that the owner of TEAM One Architects in Kansas City who hired me for my first job after graduating from Princeton University, made a big deal of my Ivy League education and athletics – which caused a good bit of jealousy and hostility from my immediate job supervisor. Not only did he assign me all the least meaningful and most tedious jobs to do, but he also took aggressive actions to make my work look bad before our mutual employer. (In days before CAD (Computer Assisted Drafting) this took form first in his smeared my pencil lettering and later in poking a hole with a drafting triangle in what I’d been working on all day.)
I tried not to react, but rather respond with love and prayer. On my drive home after his most aggressive attack, I started to really pray the “Daily Prayer” — line by line, idea by idea. (Church Manual 41) When I got to the part which reads “rule out of ME all sin,” I realized that although the healing seemed to be needed in another, the solution to this and to every problem really needed to take place in me, in my consciousness and in my loving response.
I naturally looked to Jesus –our supreme role model. After all, Jesus had overcome hatred, injustice and persecution in their harshest forms. In the Garden of Gethsemane, when he’d been captured and was being led away to be unjustly tried, whipped, tortured and crucified, I recalled his example of healing the cut-off ear of one who was leading him away to this awful experience. When I got home I looked up the spiritual definition of “Gethsemane” in the Glossary chapter of “… the Key to the Scriptures.” The application idea in this definition that stood out to me to use in my situation was “love meeting no response, but still remaining love.” (SH 586:23-25/cit. S12)
I determined to follow Jesus’ example and be loving no matter the response. The next day started out no differently, except that during a work break, my persecutor realized and said out loud that it was his wedding anniversary and that not only did he have no card or gift, but also that he’d left his car at the repair shop with his wallet inside it by mistake. This meant that he had no way to shop for anything during the upcoming lunch hour. Because of my prayers and desire to remain loving and to bless even my so-called my enemies, I quickly said, “Here are the keys to my Opel GT, Joe, and I’m happy to loan you money to buy whatever is needed.”
From then on, we became best of friends, both in and out of the office. We waterskied often behind his boat and played Frisbee or racquetball almost daily in the park, discussed Science & Health and its Biblical, Christian principles, went together to Christian Science lectures… What cannot love do, for “Love never fails!” (1st Corinthians 13:8)
Take a minute to pray about how you intend to use love to heal any and all inharmony in your workplace, in your home, as well as in our country and world. Don’t hesitate to give past challenges your best “retroactive treatments” to release all involved from a past, present or future of wrongdoing. Instead, see them and yourself as always loving and naturely eager to bless. Try pledging to have – as your own – that mind of Christ that keeps the following Beatitudes daily.
Pledge to:
Be free from pride (“poor in spirit” per Larry Groce’s CedarS Beatitude song):
Be quick to forgive (“merciful” per Larry Groce’s CedarS Beatitude song):
Win without a fight (a “peace maker” per Larry Groce’s CedarS Beatitude song): …
SEEK & FIND SALVATION THROUGH INSPIRATION, NOT PERSPIRATION. Cobbey Crisler on Matthew 26 /citations B5
The Last Supper and Gethsemane in Chapter 26, (Verse 2). Again, what is Jesus telling people? He is going to be crucified.
(Verse 14). “‘We are introduced to Judas.”
(Verse 15). “And the sale price of a slave, thirty pieces of silver.” That’s what a slave could be brought for. He was selling Jesus for the price of a slave.
(Verse 18). “Passover comes. Jesus knows what that’s going to mean.”
(Verse 24). He again using Scripture says, “As it is written of him: but woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! ” It did not have to be Judas. But Judas elected because greed in his thought completely overpowered any other right element. He betrayed his Master for gold.
(Verse 26). “We find the Last Supper.”
(Verse 30). ”The last thing Jesus does before he goes out into the Mount of Olives is to sing a hymn.”
I suggest that you very quietly at home take Psalm 113 all the way through 118. Those are the hymns still sung today by Jews at Passover. These were undoubtedly the Psalms from which that hymn would have been taken. I think that every hair on your head will stand on end and you will be moved very deeply to read those psalms and determine what probably was being sung by Jesus, among which is a modern hymn, “This is the day the Lord hath made.” Just think when he sang this.
Look at the verses that face the subject of death. It’s very moving indeed. Psalm 118 and 116 specifically. Connect it with that event. Do it privately and within yourselves. Because it’s a very precious moment of studying the Scriptures.
(Verse 31). Jesus quotes Scripture, again, Zechariah 13:7, about “the shepherd being smitten, and the sheep scattered.”
(Verses 36-45). “His Gethsemane hour he faces.” You have to read every gospel account of Gethsemane to appreciate it. The oil press that forced out of Jesus, according to Luke, sweat that looked like drops of blood pouring on the ground.
Jesus was fighting the Adam-myth of man’s origin, where the curse on Adam was, that from the sweat of his brow he would survive. Here Jesus was overcoming that claim on man of perspiration and relying on man’s salvation through inspiration.
(Verse 50). Jesus’ first words to Judas. Could you have said that to Judas? “Friend, wherefore art thou come?” (Verse 53). He says to Peter who chopped off the ear of the High Priest’s servant, “Don’t you know that I could pray to God and immediately be saved?”
(Verse 54). “But how shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be?”
“What was Jesus using as his guide going right through the crucifixion? Everything he found in the Scriptures or he wouldn’t do it.”
“Book of Matthew, Auditing the Master: A Tax Collector’s Report,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
MAKE FOR YOURSELF “The Gethsemane Decision” (abbreviated talk) Cobbey Crisler on Matthew 26:1-45/cit. B7 (& Mark 14:22-36)
[Cobbey’s talk in part…:] “Is the secret to being a follower and a believer of Jesus the straightening out of priorities in our thinking as Jesus established that method? God’s will not our own. It’s something human nature is not used to. It is radical. If we are facing the basic, primary decision between success and failure, it’s whether we are in tune with our own wills or whether we are totally committed to God’s will. We should be able to see all kinds of indications of this in the Scriptures…
… “Jesus found what humanhood could be when the Divine was behind it every step of the way. There is nothing in Jesus’ humanhood that could stop the Divine from manifesting itself on earth as in heaven. This may be our decision we’re talking about.
“Jesus refused to allow anything to obstruct the divine will from operating on earth. Look what he was able to do with his own humanhood as well as with the humanhood of others as a result. He could take his fragile, one would think, human frame, anatomically speaking, through what was apparently at least the sound barrier, if not the light barrier. In no way did his body hamper him when we walked above the water.
“He therefore had dominion, obviously, over what we call a law of gravity. Yet when he subdued gravity through this sense of dominion, gravity had no control over the dominion-man. Notice he was not like our astronauts, weightless as the result of negating gravity. He was still in absolute control of every aspect of his being and progressing toward his destination. He didn’t have to do it step-by-step because we hear that when he set foot in the boat instantly, not only Jesus, but the comprehension of Jesus could embrace his disciples plus boat, and get all of them through what we feel today, technologically would require heat-resistant metal, crash helmets, oxygen masks, or whatever else in order to preserve the human frame, and to get it through such stresses and pressures and tensions. Jesus was used to the pressure of Gethsemane, the olive press. He did not fear what flesh could do to him, obviously…
… “If our thesis as presented is accurate, that the implication of Paul’s statement [I Corinthians 15:22], “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” presents problem and solution, or remedy, then one of the greatest research jobs awaiting all of us is to get back into that problem called Adam which we’re all wrestling with.
“Just make a list of everything you detect that Adam did wrong mentally and physically. Because, if it is true that Jesus’ mission was to remedy the Adam man and wipe that alternative off the face of man’s consciousness, then everything that Adam did wrong which was upside down Jesus is going to put right side up and prove that man is upright. Many things may occur to you, for instance in the initial phases of such a list which we could just touch upon. Adam’s problem occurred in what environment? The garden of Eden. Where did Jesus face down and confront that Adam- problem? The Garden of Gethsemane. Is this a coincidence? Is Gethsemane intended to be the remedy for the problems of Eden in our own thinking? I love in that context to remember Isaiah’s words [Isaiah 1:29] when he says, “Ye shall be confounded for the gardens ye have chosen.” Eden, Gethsemane.
“Adam’s problem, though, is probably symbolized most graphically by what? He had been told not to do something, what was it? “Not to eat of that tree” [Genesis 3:3]. Instead he went and did it. The disobedience, doing one’s own will, would have to be totally remedied right up with the same even greater peak pressure on a humanhood that had just announced to the world that the way to get out of this Adam-mess is to yield to God’s will regardless of the pressure upon you, so [it’s] doing God’s will versus doing one’s own will.
The tree of knowledge of good and evil. You know that the New Testament refers several times to the cross as the tree, that they nailed Jesus to the tree [Acts 13:29; 1Peter 2:24]. Interesting symbolism. The attempt to nail Jesus as if he were one more in the dying race of Adam, to be nailed to death, and that’s the termination and the end of anything that he would offer man radically as salvation. Jesus could not be nailed on the cross any more than God’s man could be nailed on the cross, and thus his theology was exemplified.
“Do you remember, – just things like this to show you how much fun this work can be as well – part of the curse on Adam [Genesis 3:17,18] was that thorns will be brought forth unto him. Did Jesus have to face Adam’s thorns on that weekend? …
“We’re going to review the actual events of the Gethsemane experience and see some of the differences. What Jesus faced, what he was remedying, why he was there and see that we must, just for gratitude’s sake alone, have a stake in that Gethsemane, pioneer work. But then we must take it beyond this. We must go and do likewise.
“Matthew 26:30 “When they had sung an hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives.” A hymn before Gethsemane. That shows the value Jesus places on such an uplifting of thought through the conjoining of music and words. The meaning that is often conveyed even more deeply to us when we have that unity of soul expressed by thought in that manner.
Matthew 26:36 “Jesus comes to a place called Gethsemane,” the oil press.
“Do you think that by going to so many of these preceding verses that we need now look for very little explanation as to the agony of this hour, and the burden Jesus was bearing? With all the world’s tradition behind the necessity for doing one’s own will, to take that as an escape route and Jesus slams the door on that forever. …
“Matthew 26:37 Peter, James and John fall asleep, in a trance-like sleep.” It’s hypnotic.
“Matthew 26:38 Even after Jesus had said, “Tarry ye here, and watch with me.” My mom pointed out a parallel here. I recall hitting my head several times that I’d never seen that. Those words “Tarry ye here” are exactly the words Elijah said to Elisha and Elisha refused to tarry, “As the Lord liveth and as thy soul liveth.” Look at that for image and likeness to Original! “As God lives and as your identity therefore must live, I will not leave thee.” My mother just said, “Just think of how different that Gethsemane experience might have been if the disciples had just learned the lesson of Elisha and carried that Scriptural inspiration with them. Elisha saw the ascension of Elijah because he did not give up. Jesus was left alone in this experience in Gethsemane. The deep sleep that fell upon the original Adam falls upon his descendants.
Matthew 26:39 “Jesus then goes away about a stone’s cast,” further spiritual distance from his disciples, perhaps, and his prayer, the Gethsemane decision, “Saying, my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless” make no mistake where my commitment is, “not as I will,” He told us that was his mission, not to do his own will but to do his Father’s will. If Gethsemane had broken him, where would we be? “Not as I will, but as thou wilt.” Is that Jesus overcoming the original sin of Adam? …
[Luke 11:1,2] Look at “Thy will be done” in the Lord’s Prayer. Why is it there? The prayer that Jesus himself gave us in response to the question, “Lord, teach us to pray.”
[Matthew 6:9] “After this manner therefore pray ye.” “Abba.” Immediately be a little child and be sure you’re committed to God’s will being done…. from the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, “What is meant in this statement ‘not my will but thine be done’ is the active divine resolve which cannot remain in the sphere of thought but demands action everywhere. We have the impression [in the Scriptures] that nothing human but only this divine will can provide the impulse of the execution of the plan of salvation.”
“We discussed at some length a decision, a question, a choice that could have taken a fraction of a second if it were not for the human mind’s built-in resistance that we see the ample testimony to be throughout the Scriptures. The necessity for inculcation to get the point over, and over, and over to us is obvious in studying the works of our master teacher Jesus in the New Testament, but also seeing the examples before him in the Old Testament. Gethsemane is the press, the oil press. Like Jesus, we must have oil within us. The pressure is still on. If Gethsemane is the press, can we say and be backed up by Scripture, that not my will but thine be done is the oil? If so, that’s the Christ-oil. The word Christ is based upon the Greek word for oil. That’s what poured out of Jesus’ experience at Gethsemane. What is it designed to do? To anoint, to heal, to feed, to cleanse. If the pressure of Gethsemane is upon us, what is oil designed to do? Do we find in our character anything unlike that Christ-anointed example? Is that human will that needs to be crushed out forever?
“We think we’re in an oil crisis today. The pressure is on. But Gethsemane’s purpose has a divine result regardless of what the world can bring to bear upon you and me, Jesus could say in part of that hymn that he sang before Gethsemane which is locatable in the later psalms, is still sung today at Passover, that he needed not to fear what man or flesh could do. Out of that experience flowed the oil that is still blessing us, is still being utilized. We’re not in an oil crisis today if we’re in the way with Jesus. We maybe at a “parting of the ways,” the meaning of the word crisis. We may be challenged regularly and often to make our right decisions, our right choice, our Gethsemane decision.
“Then, the result of no longer bowing down to a human will, no longer seeing within us any domination by others through their human will, but filled with the Holy Ghost’s own message, the angel that strengthens Jesus at that moment, according to Luke. That angel awaits to strengthen us today.
“The world with its creaky joints awaits, needs, yearns, for more Christ oil to be poured from the thoughts and lives of those who have made the decision, are continuing to make the decision, and are moving from Gethsemane at the base of the Mount of Olives to the summit of the Mount of Olives where Jesus himself ascended. We never have to budge from that mount. It represents both cross and crown, both problem and solution. And therefore that oil which negates the experience of the cross and delivers the crown shows us that those two symbols, as precious as they are in Scripture, are inseparable. If the cross represents the problem, and the crown the solution, then intertwined they deliver that simple message to me, problem solved. That is the result of the Gethsemane decision.”
“The Gethsemane Decision,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
NOTE THE PROPHESIES AND THEIR FULFILLMENT IN THE CRUCIFIXION OF JESUS.
Cobbey Crisler on Matthew 27/citation B9
Matthew 27: (Verse 26 of Chapter 27). “Then, the scourging, the whipping of Jesus.”
(Verse 60 of Chapter 26). “The two false witnesses.”
(Verse 74). “Peter’s denial to the point where he’s cursing and swearing. The cock crows.” (Verse 75). “Peter remembers that Jesus had told he would do this. He goes out and weeps bitterly.”
Chapter 27, (Verse 3). ‘Judas tries to give back the money”
(Verse 5). “Being unable to, he goes out and hangs himself.”
(Verse 9). “Matthew finds in prophecy spoken by Jeremy the prophet even the prediction of the sale of Jesus for thirty pieces of silver.”
He says it’s Jeremy. It may have been in his version, who knows? But we find it today in Zechariah, Chapter 11, Verse 13.
(Verse 19). We find the political drama between Pilate and the Jews accentuate to the point that Matthew is the only gospel to mention Pilate’s wife. “Pilate’s wife had a dream not to bother this just man.” But what man listens to his wife?
(Verse 24). Pilate goes ahead and succumbs to political pressure. “Washes his hands, saying he is innocent.”
(Verse 29). “The crown of thorns. The mocking of Jesus.”
(Verse 34). “On the cross, he’s given vinegar to drink mingled with gall.” That is in prophecy, too, Psalm 69, Verse 21.
(Verse 35). Matthew says that also. The parting of the garments is in prophecy. This is Psalm 22. Just read Psalm 22 from beginning to end and see how your own view of prophecy might change.
(Verse 38). “The two thieves.”
(Verse 39). “The wagging of their heads.”
(Verse 41). “The chief priests mocking,”
(Verse 43). Saying, “He trusted in God; let him deliver him now.” You’ll find that in Psalm 22, the very words.
(Verse 46). “Jesus saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Is that just a cry of a bewildered, defeated man? Read Psalm 22 and you will see in the opening verse, it’s an exact quote of that Psalm. lt was as if Jesus were saying to humanity, if you want to know why I’m here and really appreciate my role, read Psalm 22. So, should we do any less than turn to that chapter?
(Verse 55). “Many women stick with him and watch the events.” Verse 56 gives us a list of them.
(Verse 57). “We find he is buried in a tomb belonging to Joseph of Arimathea who is called a rich man.” In connection with also read Isaiah 53.
Note Jesus’ on-cross awareness in Matt 27 (B9) of his fulfilling a 1,000-year-old prophesy in Ps. 22
W: In his remarkably inspiring talk, “The Walk to Emmaus,” Cobbey Crisler gives an eye-opening review of Jesus’ words on the cross. They tip us off as to his confident awareness of his fulfilling prophesy by asking for God’s help in Psalm 22:1 and joyfully getting it a “live for ever” resurrection to “glorify him” (Psalm 22:26, 23). You’ll be rewarded by some “wows” in the divinely precise correlation of verses from the Old and New Testaments if you follow this advice from Cobbey that I partially transcribed with Janet Crisler’s encouraging permission from “The Walk to Emmaus.”
[Cobbey] “Rather than go through it and take away that thrill of discovery, study the statements Jesus makes from the Cross … Instead of worrying why our Master seemed to bend under pressure, that higher view of our Master working scripturally at every moment will be rewarded by finding the passage in Psalms 22:1. The context in which it appears (Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34) was written one thousand years before the crucifixion.” “It was as if Jesus were saying to humanity, if you want to know why I am here and really appreciate my role, read Psalm 22. So, should we do any less than turn to that chapter?” Just read Psalm 22 from beginning to end and see how your view of prophesy might change.” The very words of the priests with their wagging heads in Matt. 27:39-43 are foretold in Ps. 22:7-8. Ps. 22:16 foretells of the piercing of hands and feet and Ps. 22:18 prophesies the parting of the garments and casting of lots for them as recorded in Matt.27:35. Matthew 27:32 We’re going to see some of the details of the crucifixion. Remember Jesus kept emphasizing that the prophet had said that the Messiah would suffer.
Matthew 27:33. We know of a place of a skull or Golgatha.
Matthew 27:34 We’re aware that the drink he was given has almost an exact recipe which you can be assured is not in my wife’s cookbook. [Laughter] It says, he tasted it but he would not drink.
Matthew 27:39 Then it says, “they that passed by” beneath the cross “reviled him, wagging their heads,” Please remember that, “wagging their heads.” Remember we’re reading the fulfillment. We’re going to go back to prophecy shortly to test it out.
Matthew 27:43 and Psalms 22:8 Then we find at the bottom of the cross that the chief priests and the scribes and the elders, the ones who knew the Scripture best, presumably, saying, – if we would all read together I think it will really bring it more to thought. Let’s read it out loud. – “He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, I am the Son of God.” How would you characterize that remark? It’s rather what? Wasn’t enough to nail him on the cross without that sarcasm that he said he was the Son of God. So, let God say that. It really isn’t worthy of those who are holding high theological positions of that period, or any period. But that seems to be human nature.
Certainly, it stirred Jesus to the very roots of his being, the real roots of his being. That, of course, would refresh him on the cross. Do you think it reminded him of anything? If it did, do you think it was partly responsible for the very next thing that is uttered audibly?
Matthew 27:46 and Psalms 22:1 The very thing that many Christians wish their Master had never uttered, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? ...My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Just keep in thought the sequence of this.
Psalm 22:7,8. As Jesus may have done with his disciples which caused their hearts to burn within them. Perhaps ours will too. Let’s read together verses 7 and 8 out loud. ‘AII they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him: lei him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him,” a passage maybe one thousand years earlier than the event. Do you think that if you were disciples and Jesus was reading these two passages and you had witnessed to that, that any hair on your head could be horizontal?
You saw those events, and Jesus is describing them from centuries-old documents, and that isn’t all. They could have recalled the next thing Jesus said on the cross after the scribes and Pharisees had said that. They could have recalled that Jesus said something they wished he hadn’t said. Yet suddenly, in the light of what they see here, and in the light of the fact that how better could Jesus, as a Scriptural student, sound a trumpet note for every Scriptural student from his time through our century, than to do what every Jewish boy did in memorizing the Psalms, because they would recognize the Psalm by the first verse.
Psalm 22:1 [“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”] Is that a coincidence? Was Jesus saying to every receptive thought [that] he told people to search the Scriptures to find him? No one can really comprehend what he said on the cross unless they find it here in Psalm 22. Because it’s not simply a cry of agony, even though it came from the very depths of an agonizing experience. It was a quotation from the Scripture and a Scriptural student of Jesus’ caliber would not quote from Scripture unless he meant it like a direction signal in the horizon down through the ages, pointing to the very same Scripture. Isn’t it as if he were saying, “Read this if you want to understand why I am here.” So, let’s read it. I’m sure the disciples suddenly had the Bible given to them as they never had before. Suddenly the suffering aspects of the Messiah in prophecy came out through the very pioneer who had fulfilled those prophecies.
Psalm 22:13 Suddenly we find that “They gaped upon me [with] their mouths,”
Psalm 22:14 describes “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint.” Anyone remember John’s [19:34] description of what happened when the spear pierced his side? It said, “Blood and water poured out.”
Psalm 22:15 says, “My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws.” A very vivid description of a man who is in thirst.
Do you remember one verse in the gospel of John [19:28]? I’ll read it to you just while you’re looking at that Psalm 22 verse. Listen to how John does this. John was one of the fellows who went fishing. But look how he is writing for the record. ‘After this, Jesus knowing that all things were accomplished,” How did he know? Did he know the blueprint? “That the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst.” Those disciples didn’t even know that before the walk to Emmaus and before the time that Jesus talked to them in that room….”
In Chapter 28 we find the resurrection (Verse 2). The stone has been rolled back without human help.
(Verse 6). The angelic announcement is that Jesus is risen.
(Verse 7). “The women are told to go and bear witness to Jesus’ resurrection. “Women were not allowed to bear witness to anything in the courts of law of the Judaism of his period. What qualified women to bear witness to Jesus’ resurrection? Because they were there and they were receptive. It was receptivity that counted.
(Verse 16). The last view we have of Jesus in the gospel of Matthew ”when the eleven disciples go away to a mountain in Galilee.”
(Verse 17). Notice, it’s said almost pathetically, that “some of his disciples doubted.” We know of one, Thomas.
(Verse 18). “Jesus comes, announces, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.”
(Verse 19). “He cites their mission,” to go where? Just to the Jews? All nations, the universality of Christianity, all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”
(Verse 20). That baptism of the Holy Ghost is combined with fire! “Teaching them.” We have been beneficiaries of this apostolic succession of the Spirit. “They taught that we were to observe what Jesus commanded.” Do we benefit from the statement Jesus left with his disciples to give to us, “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.”
How do you and I find immediate access to Jesus? In the Scriptures. Isn’t that where Jesus told his disciples they could find him? In the Scriptures, fulfilling the prophecy. How about Matthew our tax-collector? Our despised customs official. Did he fulfill what Jesus had personally directed him to do? Did he teach others “to observe all things wherefore Jesus had commanded him”?
You will notice that he ends his gospel in that way, and has given to all generations following Jesus’ words, “I am with you alway.”
Through the gospel of Matthew, we do have that sense of Jesus with us always.”
“Book of Matthew, Auditing the Master: A Tax Collector’s Report,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
DIVINELY LOVE & ESTEEM ALL AS YOU “CAST YOUR NET ON THE RIGHT SIDE” (toward the Decapolis & the rest of the world – a new take we got from our Principia Holy Lands Tour guide when at this Morning Meal site in January 2020) [Cobbey Crisler on John 21:1-15/cit. B11]
[Cobbey:] “John 21, the last chapter of John, is considered by some scholars to be a later addition, but still, very possibly, by the same author.
“John 21:1. We’re told that Jesus appears at the Sea of Tiberias, which is Galilee.
“John 21:2, “Already assembled there were seven disciples, all who had left the profession of fishing, – we thought: Peter; Thomas, Nathaniel, the sons of Zebedee, unnamed here, James and John, and two other of his disciples.”
“John 21:3. They apparently had nothing to do. Discipleship returns to the fishing boat. “Peter,” with his fingers almost audibly drumming against the side of his boat, “says I have an idea. I’m going fishing. Nobody else had any better suggestion. “So, they all go fishing. They spent that entire night fruitlessly. The very fishes avoided them. “Isn’t it interesting that the Anchor Bible makes this comment on the disciples’ profession, “It is notable that never in the gospels do the disciples catch a fish without Jesus help.”
“But notice the contrast between Verse 3 and Verse 4
John 21:3, ”That night they caught nothing.”
“John 21:4″But, when the morning as now come, Jesus stood on the shore.” What patience Jesus had with discipleship! Waiting for them to realize the importance of carrying on his work. But, once again, without that realization, “they did not even recognize Jesus humanly.”
“John 21:5. Jesus asked the main important question. You’ve spent the entire night out there. “Children, do you have any results? Do you have any meat? No is their answer:
“Now it is obvious when one is fishing – using a net that there’s very little difference between the right side and the left side. The factor then brought out in John 21:6 just be the obedience to Jesus’ word, the concept that he has exhibited throughout in his approach to economics and supply. “Cast the net he says, “on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find. ” They are obedient. They do exactly what Jesus requests of them. Now, instantly, they find their net is filled with fishes. They could have saved themselves that entire night.
“Then, John 21:7 refers once again to ”the disciple whom Jesus loved. He recognizes Jesus. It is the Lord, he says.” He must have recognized. that sign of dominion. over all, that mastery that he introduced even into the profession of fishing but was attempting to elevate them from profession to practice of Christianity. What had happened to his invitation to them, and expectation of them, to become fishers of men?
“Edgar Lee Masters (1869-1950), U.S. poet and novelist, says this about it the impetuous Peter, “O Peter, gnarled. branch of the vine.” Peter throws his fisher’s coat around him and plunges into the sea. We must remember that the sea of Galilee has a shoreline that drops off quickly. So, he probably had to swim part of the way. Traditionally, sailors and fishermen. aren’t the best swimmers. But, ignoring that, just as Peter had burst into the tomb to be there first, he casts himself into the sea.
“John 21:8. ”While the other disciples bring the ship ashore, it says they were not far from land, but as it were two hundred cubits, that’s about a hundred yards. dragging the net with fishes.”
“John 21:9. Here’s all that time they could have spared by giving priority to the lessons Jesus had already taught them. Jesus hadn’t toiled all night. He didn’t even have to use the fish that they brought in. “For when they arrived there “was a charcoal fire there.” In fact, the Greek word is anthrakian which is the root of our word anthracite. “And fish. already there; laid thereon– and bread.” Toast and fish all ready.
“John 21:10. But Jesus wanted them to participate in this, “and said, bring of the fish which ye have now caught.”
“John 21:11. Simon Peter, who was already on shore, goes to the net personally, and pulls it to shore. Who but a fisherman would remember this detail? ”There were one hundred fifty-three fishes in that net. Someone counted. It might be just the sign of the authenticity of authorship here by an eye-witness. “And still. the net was not broken.” Remember, back in Luke 5:6, at another incident, the net broke.
“John 21: 12. “Jesus invitation is “Come and dine.” Now, they know who he is.
“John 21:13. “Jesus,” in his characteristic gesture, “took bread, and gave them, and fish likewise.” This was indeed a breakfast, but how different from that last supper! This breakfast was celebrating his victory over death. Not looking forward to tragedy, death, and lack of comprehension by the disciples, the dawn was in the disciples thought as well as over the sea of Galilee on that special morning.
Now we engage in a dialogue between Jesus and Peter. The dialogue as printed in the King James Version (KJV), seems rather dull and repetitive indeed. In the original Greek however, there is a depth of meaning.
“John 21:15, “Jesus says to Peter, Do you love me more than these?” It’s obvious that Peter is being tested. We may ask, tested for what? That becomes clearer later in the story.
…
BONUS word study for the Greek words of philia and agape, both translated LOVE here in the KJV:
“Another word which we find repeated in the Greek New Testament, is philia, a word that conveys brotherly love. It still has a sense of class consciousness about it. It has the compassion and the sympathy, such as organizations like the Peace Corps show. But there is sometimes a condescending quality in the thinking of those who are expressing love at the philia level. Almost like patting the head of the one you are helping. As if implicitly we were saying, you’re down there and I’m up here, and I’m going to try to help you.
“The Greeks had a higher sense of love than that. And of course, taken out of classical Greek, it has a renewed and fuller meaning in concept in the New Testament. That word is agape. Agape, according to one commentator and lexicographer, conveys the following, “To desire good for the one you esteem. The concept of divine love.”
If I should to choose to love you at the level of agape, look what is required of me. First, I must esteem you. That’s not patting you on the head. That’s eye-to-eye respect and esteem. Can one really have love anywhere without that quality of respect? I must esteem you. But that, too, could be a passive sense of love, without that other part of the definition which this one commentator had provided.
“To desire good for one you esteem. I must be actively employed in desiring for you good or I am not operating at the level of agape.
“What word do you think Jesus uses when he says to Peter, “Do you love me?” ”Agapao?” he says. But Peter responds in the original text, “Yes, Lord you know that I love thee.” But he uses the word “phileo.” Maybe that explains Jesus’ repetition.”
“Book of John, A Walk with the Beloved Disciple,” B. Cobbey Crisler**
