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Today We Remember That Christ Died for (anti) Us

If one wishes to mediate on the sufferings of Christ for us, one can go to the Gospels & read the accounts of the crucifixion. However, the gospels move over the actual crucifying very quickly. If one wishes to enter into the suffering of Christ, other passages are recommended.

THE GARDEN OF GETHSEMANE

In the Garden the Lord Jesus did not pay for our sins by suffering; all that happened on the cross. However, in the Garden we see His dread of the cross, His dread of enduring our sins being place on Him and being separated from the Father in His human nature with the "My God, My God, for what purpose have you forsaken Me?" In the Garden He sweat, as it were drops of blood.

THE OT

As strange as it may be seen, there is a lot of detail on Christ's death in the Old Testament. Ps 22; Ps 69; and Isaiah 52-53 are particularly detailed. E.g., Ps 69 "Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: And I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; And for comforters, but I found none. They gave me also gall for my food; And in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink."

MUSIC

I am quite fond of Theodore Dubois' Seven Last Words of Christ, even tho I believe Dubois was a papist and misunderstood the atonement somewhat as indicated by the words of His canata, which I revise in my mind as I listen to it. Dubois also throws in a little Mariolatry, which is abominable. But you eat the fish & spit out the bones.

Dubois has Mary singing the opening, which should be sung by the Christ figure in the Cantata:

All ye people,
Who by the way are passing (2x)
Give ear to me,
Come and behold;
Was there sorrow, sorrow like my sorrow.
He has made me desolate,
He Almighty
3 Long Hours with anguish afflicted,
Call me not just now Naomi,
Let my name now, be Mara.
(Mara = bitter, allusion to the Ruth story).

You can probably find this on YouTube.

The 4th Word is the most profound,
Eli, Eli, lema sabachtani
My God, My God, for what purpose have you forsaken Me?
El = God, Eli = my God, le = for, ma = what, lema = why?

Dubois confuses the forsaking by God with Christ's forsaking by His people, Israel.

In His human nature apparently for a time the Lord Jesus forgot the purpose of His death; He was innocent, so a why is understandable.
He died to pay for our sins.
Had He not done this, we must all be destroyed in the Lake of Fire.
In fact, I believe had Christ not gone to the cross & God not been able to look ahead to the cross in the Garden of Eden, the entire Adamic race would have been there & then wiped out.

Salvation is a free gift to whoever believes on the Son of God -- free to us,
but it was not free to Him; it cost Him a torment we can hardly fathom.

Re: Today We Remember That Christ Died for (anti) Us

Thank you for the post.
Personally, I like Haydn's Seven Last Words(instrumental).
Additionally, Haydn was a Catholic so that only makes it better!
Sadly, he does not portray the figure of Mary in the Passion as prominently as he should have, though it is understandable from a musical perspective.
I just add my own Marian VENERATION in one the third word to the best of my ability to compensate for what the song lacks.
I also thoroughly enjoy Handel's Messiah, even with its Pseudo-Christian undertones.
I'll be sure to look at Dubois' too, I'm interested in how he portrayed the Passion.

Re: Today We Remember That Christ Died for (anti) Us

Sorry to hear that Haydn was a papist; I regret that he was not a catholic like myself.

Mary is not prominent in the Passion of Christ; she is there & one of the 7 words is for her indeed. She did not pay for our sins; & it is idolatrous and blasphemous to assert such a thing. Co-redemptress is a heresy.

I don't know why you call Handel's Messiah "Pseudo-Christian." I believe that all of the lyrics are direct quotes from the Bible.

Since Dubois was a papist, you probably will like his work. Unfortunately he does have a little mariolatry in it. And he confounds the cry of desolation (My God, my God, why have you forsaken me) with Israel's rejection of the Lord Jesus. "Vine, I have chosen, have cho-o-sen, have chosen, vine that I have planted; how art thou converted, converted to bitterness, that thou wilt crucify me." I just compartmentalize it in my mind since His rejection by Israel is certainly a factor. But the forsaking is by God (the wages of sin is death, eternal separation from God, our deserved fate in the Lake of Fire), and that is what Christ endured for us; eternal God able to exhaust the punishment of God in 3 hours. Are you familiar with Anselm's work on the atonement?

Dubois is also politically incorrect. I believe that the original lyrics (in English) was "And the Jews in passing by Him, did blaspheme & revile Him." This is sanitized now to "And the crowd in passing by Him . . . ." They jeer, BAH! BAH! BAH! BAH!

When I first heard this work, perhaps when I sang it in choir as a teenager, at one point it was like electricity jumping through me, during the 5th Word "I am athirst." The Christ figure sings pitifully and slowly "I am ath-irst." pause. Choir jumps in all together like, "BAH!" Those who never heard it before are given a jolt.