Thoughts From John Scudder

Dear Friends,

Warmest regards to all on this day before the start of Lent, in the year of our Lord 2026! I hope your day is going well and you are (like me) counting down the days – 47 to be exact – until we get to celebrate Easter, or Resurrection Sunday. Lent is a longstanding tradition in Christian circles, and one that is useful if observed with a desire to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus.

Today’s entry is not specifically about Lent, although it points in that direction. It is the testimony of one man’s journey to faith in Jesus. A man who worked as a medical missionary in Madras, India, from 1836 until his death in 1855. I am sending it to you because when I walked into my office this morning, moved one book, and found a very small book hidden behind it! It is literally 2 inches wide by 3 inches high and 5/8 of an inch thick, with 214 pages! It’s an embossed leather-bound book, published by “The American Tract Society” in 1846. Its title is: “Provision for Passing Over Jordan,” written by Reverend John Scudder, M.D. halfway through his time in India. I have updated some of the language. Enjoy.

“There was a time when I was asleep in sin. The terrors of the Law did not awaken me. The love of God the Father in giving his Son to die for sinners did not move me. The blood of Christ had no charms to allure me. Yet, while I was in this awful condition the Holy Spirit found me, had compassion upon me, awakened me, alarmed me, took the things of Christ and showed them to me. He taught me to love Jesus.

Since the day of that gracious condescension, and his kindness to me, how often have I grieved and dishonored him. How often I have provoked him to give me over to the hardness of my heart and to forsake me forever. But despite all my provocations, he has graciously been pleased to cling to me. In fact, the more I grieved and dishonored him, the more he has shown his favor to me. Thanksgiving and praise be forever yours, ever-blessed Spirit!

By nature, and by practice, I was a child of wrath, exposed not only to the displeasure of God in this world, but to his curse forever in the world to come. The reason for that is because I am by nature, and by practice, a sinner. From the crown of my head to the sole of my foot, there is no soundness in me. Nothing but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores, which have neither been closed, nor bound up, nor kept in check with ointment.

My whole head is sick. My whole heart is faint. I am so utterly defiled that even in going to my heavenly Father to confess my sins, I may add to the load of my guilt. Even my repentance needs to be repented of. My tears need washing with the blood of my Redeemer. Where, then, would my hopes of heaven be if it were not for Jesus? How undone I would be forever, if he had not come to seek and to save that which was lost!

"Jesus sought me when a stranger

Wandering from the fold of God;
He to rescue me from danger,
Interposed his precious blood.”

O what a friend is Jesus! He clung to you, my soul, although everything you did conspired to make him let go of you and leave you to fall into hell… Earth and hell were against Jesus; and you too, my soul, were against him. Yet, to purchase your salvation, he trod the weary path to the tomb, alone and with no one to accompany him. He trod it through tears and groans, under the sharp edge of the sword of God’s justice. He was trodden, as it were, in the winepress of the fierceness of the wrath of God Almighty.

In order, my soul, that you may be more fully impressed with a sense of the love of your Redeemer, it is necessary to follow him through the scenes of some of his last hours on earth… The blood-drenched prayer of agony in Gethsemane. The arrest. His being spit upon, beaten, and scourged. His being made a mock king, and nailed to a cross, expiring between two malefactors.

Oh what wonderful love! A love the flame of which nothing could quench! You were perishing, my soul, but saved you would be, though it cost your Redeemer his life freely given. For he knew that by yielding it up he could save you. Blessed Redeemer, what a friend you are to me! None among all your friends, my soul, is like your Savior. No, my precious Redeemer, none among all my friends is anything like you.”

 

As we begin to look toward those “scenes of some of his last days on earth,” I would encourage you to pick up your Bible’s, read through all the gospel accounts starting with the trek from Jericho up to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and going through to Easter Sunday Morning. That way you too can feast upon the love of Jesus and find Him to be a Friend unlike any other.

In the Bonds of Christian Affection, Pastor Jeff