FamilyLife Today®

David Mathis: I want the first voice I hear in the morning to be the voice of God in the scriptures. There is something so important for my soul that happens in those first moments of not rushing through God's word. I try not to read God's word in a hurry. I want to linger over God's word.

Ann Wilson: Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Ann Wilson.

Dave Wilson: And I’m Dave Wilson, and you can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com. This is FamilyLife Today.

Ann Wilson: So the Lent season is starting, and I was thinking about you because you used to go to church on Easter. What do you remember the most about those Easter services as a kid growing up?

Dave Wilson: I remember I had to go because Mom said, "It's Easter, we’re going to church," which she said every Sunday.

Ann Wilson: Which I didn't go, so...

Dave Wilson: Yeah, it was a good thing. Good for your mom.

There were times I didn't want to go, but my single mom did a phenomenal job of bringing Jesus into my life and I didn't even really know it or appreciate it. But I do remember sitting there, even from a little boy to a teenager, not understanding the story. How does the resurrection of Jesus Christ mean anything to me and to our world right now? I just sat there and never could connect the dots.

Ann Wilson: I think that's true for a lot of people, especially when they didn't grow up in the church. And you had a chance to sit down with David Mathis, who wrote the book *Rich Wounds*. I'm excited for our listeners to get to hear this conversation.

Dave Wilson: Because what David did is he connects the dots. His book *Rich Wounds* is all about the wounds of Christ and what that means for us, but also the triumph of Christ over the cross and the resurrection.

David is the executive director of desiringGod.org and a pastor of Cities Church in Minneapolis. He's also a husband and he's got four kids as well. You talk about a theologian who's going to dive deep into understanding not only the life and death, but also the resurrection of Christ. That's David, so it was a great conversation and I'm excited for our listeners to hear it.

Tell us a little bit about your thinking as you were writing this book. I know it's the beginning of Lent. How are you hoping and dreaming that people would use this book?

David Mathis: I may be wrong about this, but I wonder how many Christians have a detailed sense of all the glory and all the beauty that there is to see in the person of Christ. I think sometimes we can be content with pretty thin, canned, recycled messages about Jesus. I've heard of Jesus, I know about Jesus, but there is so much more to know and experience about Jesus than I think the typical Christian today often has from just preaching or from reading in the Gospels.

Just this morning I was reading in Genesis 45. Jacob's son, Joseph, has been sold into slavery. God's favor is on him, he blesses him, and he comes through Potiphar's house, he comes through prison, and he comes to Pharaoh. The brothers find out that this is Joseph, and of course, they're scared. They go back to tell Jacob, "We have found your son. Joseph is alive, and he is lord over Egypt." This is Genesis 45, verse 6.

The narrative reports that Jacob was numb in heart, and he did not believe them. I pause there and just thought, this news that came to Jacob from his sons that Joseph is alive is so good that he has a hard time believing it. If you tell somebody such good news that they're numb in heart and have a hard time believing it, what do you do next?

What the brothers do is they tell him all that Joseph had to say. When somebody gets such good news that they're numb in heart and they don't believe it, what we do next is we keep telling them, give them more details. Let me give you some more details. Let me tell you more about it.

That's my hope in the book: let me tell you more about Jesus. Let me tell you more details about him. If we linger in the Gospels and try to get some help from church history and people who have observed the life of Jesus through the scriptures in different times and places, there is so much more to learn and to glean and to marvel at about Jesus.

Dave Wilson: As I was reading *Rich Wounds*, that's what happened to my soul. It was the beauty. Again, I’m a pastor, I’ve been preaching on Easter for over 30 years and the death and resurrection of Christ. I picked up your book, and I know I’m reading it before Easter, so not like reading it during Lent, but it was rich.

Of course, that's in your title, but it brought out the beauty of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. I didn't know, but I found out in the very beginning that even the title, I should have recognized it right away as a line from one of your favorite hymns, "Crown Him with Many Crowns". Is it true that when you hear that song, your kids say, "Dad, that's your favorite"?

David Mathis: They do. There's a couple. I also love "Jesus on My Cross Have Taken", which is the epilogue or the conclusion of the book. But it probably would have to be said that my favorite is "Crown Him with Many Crowns".

Dave Wilson: I've got a guitar here. Our listeners aren't going to like this because I’m not Chris Tomlin or some professional artist. When I read that in your book, that this is your hymn and really the title *Rich Wounds* comes from a line in "Crown Him with Many Crowns", I can't remember the last time I sang that song.

So I pulled it up, got out my guitar, and was sitting there like, "What are you doing? I’m going to sing this in our broadcast with David tomorrow." This is my version. I just made up this pretty little thing. Trust me, listeners, I won't do the whole song, okay? But I want to get to the line that really inspired this book.

Crown him the Lord of love. Behold his hands and side. Rich wounds yet visible above in beauty glorified. No angels in the sky can fully bear that sight, but downward bends their burning eye at mysteries so bright.

Let's talk about that line "Rich wounds yet visible above in beauty glorified". That's the title of the book. What is it about that phrase, that idea, that hit you? What is it that you wanted to draw out of that?

David Mathis: I don't know that it's a song that's been especially in vogue in the recent wave of worship music, what you'll hear at a big conference. I grew up with this hymn in Spartanburg, South Carolina, in my Southern Baptist church. Then in moving to Minnesota and being at other churches for years, there was a gap there where I didn't hear it for a long time. Just recently, we’ve brought it back at our church. There's some profundity to the song in several dimensions.

One is gratitude for what I was raised in, now to sing and appreciate these truths in some fresh way. But that relates to that phrase "rich wounds". "Wounds" is a word that is probably being used more today than it was 10, 20 years ago. That word has not passed out of usage. We talk a lot about our wounds. Often, it's not the physical wounds that we're talking about. We're talking about some emotional, psychological wound. Wounds of our past, our family, some trauma, the way that we've been emotionally wounded.

So there's a lot of talk about wounds today, and usually the connotations are very negative. We don't talk positively about wounds. What's so remarkable about this phrase in the song is the adjective "rich". His wounds are rich because his wounds are the wounds by which you are healed.

He has carried our griefs and our sorrows. He was wounded not by some accident. He was not wounded because of his disobedience or of his sin. He was wounded because of ours. He carried our griefs, he carried our wounds in his wounding. So his wounds, because they are saving, because he rescues us with his wounds, his wounds to our eyes are glorious. They're marvelous wounds. They are rich wounds.

We might think, okay, when we get to heaven, any scars that we have will be gone because scars are part of the old age, and God will heal and get rid of all scars. Well, the end of the Gospels talk about some scars on the glorified, resurrected body of Jesus that aren't gone. When he comes to Doubting Thomas, he says, "Put your hands in my wounds."

His scars are glorious to those whom he saved by his scars. I don't think that when we get to heaven and see Jesus face to face, the scars will be gone at that point. I think we will see glory in the scars forever. The scars are a reminder of our richness. He became poor for our sakes, that in him, though poor, we might become rich because of his blessing, his favor, that we are rescued because of the sacrifice of himself evidenced in the wounds.

Ron Deal: Hey friends, Ron Deal here, director of FamilyLife Blended®. Did you know Blended and Blessed®, the only worldwide livestream designed for couples in blended families, is free this year? Saturday, April 18th, we're going to be live in Oklahoma City. If you show up there, we're going to charge you for lunch, but other than that, it is free.

Free to livestream. Churches can bring a group of couples together and enjoy the day absolutely free. Gayla Grace is going to be with us, Davey and Kristi Blackburn, Cheryl Shumake's going to be with us, Cathy Lipp and Brian Goins are our MCs. It's going to be a wonderful day. I hope you can join us. Learn more and get the link in the show notes at FamilyLifeToday.com.

Dave Wilson: Let's talk about the book being used during Lent. It's 40 days, you've got 30 chapters. Obviously, you don't need to read one every single day. As I think about this, and even the image I had of you in church with your kids, I’m thinking of a family going through this journey with *Rich Wounds*. How would a family walk through this? What do you hope would happen as a family experiences Lent and the rich wounds of Christ?

David Mathis: Ideally, Christian families today would have a meaningful, deep, wonderful time of family gathering around God's word every single day of Lent and every single day of the year.

Dave Wilson: Is that what happens in your house?

David Mathis: No! We are so serious about Advent. I do hope there's a kind of realism in this. Personally, the Bible reading plan that I've done for years is 25 days a month. Now, that doesn't mean I intentionally take days off, but it is nice when life happens in a fallen world. It's the Discipleship Journal Reading Plan from the Navigators, and it's 25 days a month. So you've got some extra days to review or whatever if you're staying on schedule.

My hope with this book is that people find a rhythm. Lent is about 46 to 47 days from Ash Wednesday until Easter Sunday. Maybe 30 meditations would be a good thing for you personally, for you in a small group, or for you in a family. And then in particular, when you get down to the last eight days.

Me personally, I mark those last eight days from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday with particular joy and vigilance. The last eight chapters in the book are meant to be that daily walk with Jesus from riding into Jerusalem on the donkey to the final conflicts with the leaders in Jerusalem, to the Garden of Gethsemane, to Golgotha, to the waiting of the disciples on that long Saturday, and then to the joy of Easter Sunday. I would commend to readers, maybe if nailing it every day for you personally or your family is unrealistic, maybe you could nail Holy Week for eight days and that would be a really good thing.

Dave Wilson: You've broken it up into three sections. I'd love to hear some of your thoughts. Let's start with where you start with His life. What are you hoping that we glean out of these readings about the life of Christ?

David Mathis: That's right, there's the three sections leading up to that last part on Holy Week. Section one about life, section two about His death, section three the resurrection. In that first section, there is so much to linger over in Jesus' life. By that, my focus is on His life up until Holy Week.

The Gospel accounts are about a little less than 50% about His last week. You see the import and the weight of the last week of Jesus' life from Palm Sunday to resurrection and ascension. But that leaves about half the Gospels that are telling us glorious accounts. There are glories to see about Jesus in this part of the Gospels that are about His life and ministry.

What I do in that first part is linger over some of those often overlooked glories and try to see the kinds of things that are there for us from God through the Apostles in the Gospels and enrich our appreciation of Jesus' life. He didn't just come and go straight to the cross. He came and lived 30 years plus in obscurity in Nazareth.

People in the first century didn't even know what Nazareth was, it was such a small town. He lived all that time, God himself among us, living in obscurity. You don't have to be famous to have a fulfilling human life. God himself shows it. And then His three plus years of ministry at the end. The gleanings in this book are particular to His season of ministry.

Dave Wilson: I rehearse there some themes maybe often overlooked, like Jesus' own personal habits of devotion. That's where you start. I found that the places you went I didn't see coming. It was really interesting as you start with His habits, His time alone with God.

I was challenged myself to think, I read Jesus didn't just retreat but invited His disciples to join Him. At the end of each little section, you challenge us as the reader and today as the listener to say, "Okay, what are you doing with your time alone with God?" How would you encourage followers to captivate or to energize that time we get to spend alone with God, modeling after Christ?

David Mathis: An amazing thing to observe in Jesus' life is His pattern of retreat and then reentry into the world. Once you see the thing in the Gospels, you just see it all over. When Jesus retreats from the situation, the crowds are coming around, or for instance, that first day in Capernaum when He heals Peter's mother-in-law and they're bringing all the people in to be healed by Him and they go to sleep that night. This is the best night of Peter's life. Jesus is in Peter's hometown, the crowds are swirling, everybody's excited.

And they wake up the next morning and they can't find Jesus. Peter must have flipped. "Where is He? My hometown is outside the door waiting to be healed, waiting to hear His message." And Jesus has retreated to a time of prayer. Over and over again we see in the Gospels that at some of the most chaotic times, sometimes when the crowds are biggest, Jesus gets away to prioritize meeting one-on-one, face-to-face with His Father. And then He also draws the disciples into that rhythm.

A couple big themes we also see in Jesus' life is He is a man who has memorized and is saturated in God's word. So again and again, Jesus quotes scripture. "Have you not heard?" Or, "What do you do about the passage of the bush when he says I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?"

He reasons with the scriptures when He confronts His enemies. He quotes and alludes to the scriptures as He teaches His friends. So you observe a kind of scripture saturation in the life of Jesus that is very significant and should be an encouragement to us today.

Dave Wilson: I don't know what your daily life looks like back in Minnesota. You're a husband, you're a dad, you've got kids. What does that look like in terms of your habits? Give us a glimpse into your life. You're leading a family, you're in ministry. How do you live this out?

I'm putting you right on the spot like, dude, you better be living this out, right? Because our kids are watching, our wives are watching, the community is watching. It's one thing to know and talk about the life of Christ. Do we live it out? So what's that look like in terms of rhythm and habits in your life?

David Mathis: I don't mind because I did a book on this a few years ago called *Habits of Grace* where I tried to be a little bit personally revealing as well as talk to people about it. So I don't mind talking about this very private thing. It's a risk, I get it.

Dave Wilson: I asked you the question knowing you're going to have an answer. It isn't going to be, "Well, actually I don't," because our kids are watching.

David Mathis: First thing in the morning is so important and so precious. I've found over the years I don't need as much sleep as my wife. That's an opportunity, at least for me as a dad. It starts with getting myself to bed on time and not letting some screen keep me up longer than it should.

And then waking up in the morning, I want the first voice I hear in the morning to be the voice of God in the scriptures. So I set my alarm to get out of bed before my typical kids' rising time and I make a beeline to my Bible and coffee. I've got a hot cup of coffee and I've got my Bible open. Those are some of the most precious moments of my day.

I don't want to minimize the preciousness of my time with my wife or my kids or what God's called me to do in the rest of the day, but there is something so important for my soul that happens in those first moments of not rushing through God's word. I try not to read God's word in a hurry. I want to linger over God's word. The Bible itself talks about meditation. Psalm 1, he meditates on the law of the Lord day and night. Meditation is at least this: a kind of slow reading at the pace of the text.

In the hurry of modern life, probably the single most important thing I do to hold back the tides of hurry and rush is to have unhurried time in God's word in the morning. I want to linger over what He's had to say. I referenced a few minutes ago my Bible reading plan I've done for 20 years now that I just love. There are four different places in scripture and I just take my time lingering over those passages. It takes about 70 hours to read the Bible cover to cover, which is less time than the average American spends in front of the television in a month.

Not counting screens! If you discount screens that isn't an eight or nine hour a day average, very quickly you're talking 10 days and you could have read the Bible in that time. If you take text that you could read in about 15 minutes and spend 30, 35, even 40 minutes working through them slowly, meditating on those texts, praying them back to God as you receive them from God from His own voice by the power of the Spirit in the scripture, it will change your life and change your day. It gets the day off to the right start. I want to start my day with the voice of God.

Ann Wilson: When Christmas comes and Easter comes, at least for a mom, these are such busy times that it's hard sometimes to remember this is what we're talking about, this is what we're celebrating, the death and resurrection of Jesus. I like when we get these devotionals, they can really draw us back in and remember how important these holidays are. It’s a 30-day devotional that David Mathis wrote. It's called *Rich Wounds* that we just had a conversation about. But I don't know about you, but I need more than a day or two.

Dave Wilson: It's like a journey, and this is a 30-day journey to reflect on Jesus' life, death, and victory. You can find it at FamilyLifeToday.com. Just click on the link in the show notes and I’d say start the journey.

Ann Wilson: And even start talking about it with your family if you still have kids in the house. If you don't read the devotional with them, read it and then underline these things that I could talk to my kids about. Maybe just a few sentences like, "Guys, here's what's happening this week when you're reading the Bible and Good Friday's coming, this is what's happening." It just gets your heart connected with Jesus.

Dave Wilson: Again, you can find it at FamilyLifeToday.com, just click on the link in the show notes. We know life is full of challenges, and FamilyLife Today needs biblical truth more than ever. And as a FamilyLife partner, your monthly gift helps bring the truth into homes every single day through podcasts, events, and resources.

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