Wounds of Jesus : A Meditation on the Crucified Saviour

by Christina Baxter

• ISBN13: 9780310257912
• ISBN10: 0310257913
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-02-28
• Publisher: Harpercollins Christian Pub

Summary

Bring depth and spiritual enrichment to your understanding of the passion of Christ with Christina Baxter's The Wounds of Jesus. By examining the passion from the perspective of each of the wounds of Christ, readers gain a more meaningful understanding of the Lord's life and gift of sacrifice, as well as what his suffering means for us today. Each chapter includes a thorough description of one of six divine wounds (back, feet, hands, side, head, and heart) to deepen readers' understanding of the cross. In further exploration, Baxter sets each of the wounds of Jesus in the context of a major theme used by the New Testament to explain the theology of the cross. Practical applications are encouraged through discussion and reflection questions.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	p. 6
Foreword by the Archbishop of Canterbury	p. 7
Introduction	p. 9
His Back	p. 21
His Feet	p. 53
His Hands	p. 89
His Side	p. 125
His Head	p. 157
His Heart	p. 191
Conclusion	p. 221
Notes	p. 231
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

The Wounds of Jesus Copyright © 2004 by Christina BaxterRequests for information should be addressed to: Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Baxter, Christina. The wounds of Jesus : a meditation on the crucified Saviour / Christina Baxter. – 1st ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-310-25791-3 1. Jesus Christ – Crucifixion – Meditations. I. Title. BT450.B345 2005 232.96 – dc22 2004020580The author hereby asserts her moral right to be identified as the author of this work.The prayer on p. 86 is excerpted from the Book of Alternative Services © copyright 1985 by the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada; used with permission.Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1989, 1995 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America, and are used by permission. All rights reserved.The website addresses recommended throughout this book are offered as a resource to you. These websites are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement on the part of Zondervan, nor do we vouch for their content for the life of this book.All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other – except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.Interior design by Beth ShagenePrinted in the United States of America04 05 06 07 08 09 10 /.CLY/ 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1FOREWORD BY THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURYStrange as it may sound, we still sometimes forget that Jesus truly was a physical being.What he was as a material body was part of what God said, what God communicated, in his whole identity – not a bit of stage scenery or decoration, not just a background against which ideas are talked about.Christina’s meditations on the wounds of Christ direct us again and again to what is said in the physical concreteness of Jesus’ body. She brings us very close to that body, so that we can listen to God’s communication and find ourselves met and touched as bodily beings ourselves.Meditation on the wounds of Jesus is an ancient custom in the Western Church, and here it finds a genuinely modern expression, fully sensitive to where twenty-first-century believers are. Biblical scholarship combines with pastoral acumen and personal testimony to produce a moving and involving book – one which will undoubtedly be welcomed by study groups and individuals as a searching resource for a Lent in which self-understanding and understanding of God may grow in step with each other as they should.Archbishop of CanterburyINTRODUCTIONSome years ago I was asked to speak at an international Christian conference, and chose to focus on the cross of Christ. A person of some standing in the organization, and almost certainly my senior in age, approached me afterwards to say how refreshing it had been since in her experience she never heard any sermons on this subject except on Good Friday. That comment startled me a good deal. Many Christians do not attend a Good Friday service nowadays, because they are expected to be at their place of work. If this means that some, or perhaps most, Christians never learn about the cross, then they are being deprived of the heart of their faith.This Lent book is intended to address that issue by offering readers the chance to consider the crucified Saviour in order to deepen our devotion, enrich our worship and strengthen our discipleship. I am sure that if that happens other aims will also be fulfilled: we will embolden our witness and want to extend our service to the world. For centuries, Christians have believed that meditating on Jesus is an essential way in which we can open ourselves to the transforming grace of his Spirit which enables us to become more like him.Nonetheless, we need to realize, as the first followers of Jesus found, that standing at the foot of the cross of Jesus is no easy thing. I write this introduction on the feast of St Mary Magdalene, who was one such disciple. According to the Gospels, some of the men among Jesus’ followers never made it to Golgotha, but his mother, some other women and the beloved disciple were there to witness for the world the suffering, the forgiveness and the death of the Lord and Giver of Life. Their testimony has been the heart of the gospel for all later generations. We praise the God who strengthened them to look upon their son, healer, friend and teacher as he suffered and died. There is no doubt that his was the greater suffering, but theirs was also incalculable. I pray that, as you read this book, you may receive God’s similar strength so that you also can be witnesses in your turn.Before you read any further you might like to pray this prayer – which could be a prayer to use before you read each section or chapter:“Most merciful God, by your Spirit you strengthened your Son so that he was able to suffer for us; send your Spirit now, so that we may be strengthened to look upon him whom we have pierced, to receive all the benefits of his passion, and to offer ourselves wholly to your service, for his dear name’s sake, Amen”.Many books have been written about the passion of Jesus, from all kinds of perspectives. Some look at a particular Gospel; others look at the last words of Jesus from the cross; some are deeply theoretical; others are deliberately practical. I have chosen to consider the wounds which Jesus bore for us, so that we may give our primary attention to Jesus himself. I hope that, as we think on each of these wounds, we will deepen our understanding of the meaning of his suffering and the cross. You may feel that you have seen new perspectives and come to fresh understanding, but if you still find yourself perplexed and puzzled about what it all means and how it “works”, this may also be a real engagement with the tremendous mystery upon which we are focusing. There is much in Scripture which enlightens us about these things, but the Lord God says, “my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways” (Isaiah 55:8), so a deepening sense of wonder which we cannot always express in words may be a most appropriate response to this study.The proclamation of Christ crucified on the cross was as puzzling to people in the first century as it is to us today. Their perplexity, as St Paul makes clear, was that anyone could think that the Messiah, the Son of God, would be allowed to suffer in this cruel way (see 1 Corinthians 1:18–25). The very idea was abhorrent. Any contemporary of St Paul, investigating the Christian faith, might well have thought that Christians were worshipping a person who justly suffered a humiliating death on the cross. Nowhere in Greek, Roman or Jewish ideas of God was there any hint of the notion that God or God’s chosen one might be crucified. Christians, of course, were well aware of this: “Jesus . . . endured the cross, disregarding its shame. . .” (Hebrews 12:2). Somehow those who were familiar with Jewish traditions also needed to make sense of the saying in Deuteronomy 21:23 that “anyone hung on a tree is under God’s curse”. Believing, proclaiming and explaining how it could be that a person who had been tortured, disgraced and accursed was now to be acknowledged as Lord and Saviour presented the

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Excerpted from The Wounds of Jesus: A Meditation on the Crucified Saviour by Christina Baxter
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