Thoughts on Jackal City Text

Some notes coming out of an intense Sunday together…

1, everyone has been asking, so we just want you to know that our 12 year old ‘faintee’ is totally fine. The first part of the sermon was supposed to drive us to the ‘place of jackals’ where we could feel the awfulness of being broken there. I suppose it worked out too well. Thankfully, we’ve got a church community filled with nurses and doctors.

2, a helpful question was put to me after the service. I was asked if I really thought that I would respond well if I was suffering for 6 years in nightmare city… if I thought that I would hold in hope to the bloody cross where God suffered with and for me, and to the empty tomb where he overcame sin-caused suffering and readied a future for His own where there are no jackals. I had two answers. First, I hope so. And second, if I was there, I would really want a pastor in my life preaching the Gospel to me the way that I had endeavored to do it that morning. A preacher should never feel like a hypocrite for preaching hope when he is not in as dark a place as many of his hearers. That is what they need to hear, that’s why God has given him to them, and he will be the one needing to hear it soon enough.

3, no, the sermon didn’t get recorded, freak power outage. If I preach it again somewhere I will post post it. The gist was simply that when we find ourselves broken in the place of jackals (dark, cold, sleepless, painful, unjust suffering) we are allowed to use the words of Psalm 44:23-26 as our prayer… and that as New Covenant people we know that that prayer resolves in a really bloody cross and a totally empty tomb… that God (the Son) lived, prayed and answered Psalm 44.

4, we are out of space. Yeesh.