Tag: Easter

Lent 2020 | Resurrection Sunday: “Worship”

Today is Easter Sunday.

At our local congregation, we like to celebrate it as Resurrection Sunday. I find that it helps us to focus in on the reality we are remembering and celebrating.

Like so many other Christians, I celebrate this wonderful miracle at a distance. While I do not need to be in a building to remember and worship my God and my Savior, I feel a renewed appreciation for the corporeal existence of the children of God called the Church. I miss being with them.

This will be an Easter for the ages. I hope and prayer is that we do not forget the lessons learned in this difficult time.

 

I'm Alive

Lent 2018 | Day #13: Incarnation

I don’t remember what day it was or what I was doing, but I know that when I finally understood the implications of Jesus’s coming to earth, I was changed.

I don’t remember what day it was or what I was doing, but I know that when I finally understood the implications of Jesus’s coming to earth, I was changed. In the world of theological discourse, this idea is called the Doctrine of the Incarnation. It such a beautiful doctrine I will, from time to time, bring it up randomly in conversation with other believers.

Jesus’s entrance into the world is one of the pillars of the Christian faith. It is so important that the apostle John said that if it is rejected, then Jesus himself is rejected (1 John 4:2; 2 John 7). Go read those passage for yourself! They are startling.

The incarnation is remarkable because only God would devise such a plan. Only God would choose to leave heaven and enter the ravaged reality of Earth. Only God could leave the perfection and purity of the highest heaven and descend into the mire of sin-filled humanity. This is the great mystery of Bible-based religion. Not that man was able to find his way into the presence of God, but that God has entered into the plight of a broken world.

I love this doctrine. It is beautiful in the way that it displays the love of God and the miracle of salvation. Easter is the greatest day on the Christian calendar. It is the day that Jesus rises from the darkness of the tomb. But, without Advent, without Christmas, without a baby, born in a manger, Easter Sunday would be a fairytale. It would be impossible, it would never have happened. The link between these two events is necessary for the whole picture to be accurate.

So, as we approach Easter, as we look forward with anticipation to the promise that Resurrection Sunday brings, I like to look back and see what arrived on Christmas Day. In this season of Lent, we can take time and reflect on both what happened and what is to come. In fact, it is important that we do so.

Jesus suffered so that I could Live

There are few films that evoke the kind of emotions in the viewer that may have been felt by those who witnessed the final hours of Jesus’ life like The Passion of the Christ.

We watched the movie as a church this evening. It is the first time that I have watched since it was released in 2004. And for good reason. I just couldn’t watch it again but I made myself tonight.

While I know that it is a movie, I could not distance myself emotionally from what was depicted. And I guess I should not be able to. There is something so disturbingly horrifying to what Jesus endured. While the movie attempts to capture the physical realities, and I think the movie does a good job of pulling you into the emotional turmoil, it is the spiritual weight of what was happening that left me staggering yet again.

There is simply or human no way of touching this. And yet, this is what I find myself, as a believer in the one who was crucified, sensing most poignantly. The freedom I feel because of my faith in Jesus is rooted in the sacrifice of the Son of God. The hope that I have that my soul has been redeemed has been purchased by the shed blood of the Lamb of God. The peace that I have experienced in times of difficulty has been released unto me because of the promises of the Prince of Peace.

The reality of Easter is that in and through the death of Jesus life awaits for those who place their trust in Him. If we are to recapture the power of the Gospel, if we are to see the body of Christ infused with zeal, if we are to return, as a people, to our first love, we must not run from the sacrifice of the King of Kings. As a matter of fact, we must run to it. We must embrace our own death to this world. First, spiritually by faith. But second, actually through our own deaths when we breathe our last breath and step into eternity. Death by crucifixion is the price Jesus paid to provide for us the way of salvation. Death, as a result of sin, is the price we pay to bring about the consummation of our faith.

I remember listening to a message given my Dr. John Piper about missions. As I listened, a phrase struck me to the quick. He was describing the excitement and enthusiasm of the missionaries he was with even as they prayed for those who were in harms way. Dr. Piper described the experience and admonished his listens to consider what it meant to go into the mission field. He was trying to provide a context for the kind of focus and passion we are to have when we consider our journey of faith and calling to go into the world to make disciples. Listen to what he said.

Golgotha is not a suburb of Jerusalem. “Let us go with him outside the gat and suffer with him and bear reproach” (Hebrews 13:13).[Source]

How many times have I been dismissive of Jesus’ sacrifice and of the call to follow him, even to the cross? I say “dismissive” because whenever my resolve wanes, whenever my focus is blurred, whenever my fear causes me to falter, I have forgotten what it cost for me to be adopted into the family of God. It takes intentionality to keep the reality of Jesus’ death in proper perspective. Many, including me, forget how persistent a fight it is to keep the faith.

As I watched the movie tonight I was reminded of how much I have yet to learn. How much I have yet to surrender. And, maybe worse of all, how little I have really given up for the cause of Christ. I pray my surrender would only deepen as we approach another Resurrection Sunday.

Some Resources for Good Friday

Here are few resources to get you thinking about Good Friday, Jesus and what all this means for you!

  1. Raised for Us and Our Salvation: Too often in our churches the resurrection of Christ is a doctrine of secondary importance. It is neglected and forgotten until Easter comes around each year. The same disregard for the resurrection is seen in how we share the gospel. Christians can tend to share the gospel as if Jesus died on the cross and that is the end of the story. We make a zip line from the crucifixion to “repent and believe,” contrary to the example Peter sets for us in Acts 2:22-24 and 4:26. As central as the cross is to our salvation (and it is absolutely central!), what was accomplished at the cross is truly incomplete if the tomb is not found empty on Sunday morning.

  2. Why Good Friday is Good: It was on this day that sinful humanity killed the perfect Son of God, and did it in the most deplorable and humiliating public fashion available at the time. So wretched and seemingly hopeless was humanity’s condition that when faced with One who was one of us, but so not like us; when faced with the One who could and would redeem us and lead us to God, we lashed out with murderous intent and nailed him to a Roman cross. No, by any measure available, this did not seem to be humanity’s finest hour. But it was God’s greatest hour.

  3. The Father’s Cup (Good Friday): This is a wonderful and powerful retelling of the events Good Friday.

  4. The Day Jesus Died: The day that Jesus died—the day we remember as Good Friday—goes down in the history of the world as a day of great suffering, when Jesus Christ endured the weight of sin and shame on our behalf. As we remember what it cost him to reconcile us to himself on this day, it is worth walking through what Jesus endured that day.

  5. The Good (the Bad and the Ugly) Friday: “Why do we call it Good Friday if it’s the day when Jesus was murdered?” If you haven’t fielded that question from a child or a newcomer to the Christian faith, you’ve probably wondered yourself. The common answer is “It’s good for us, because the cross is how Jesus saved us.”

  6. What Happened on Friday of Holy Week?: The witness of the four gospels are harmonized so that can read for yourself what was taking place during the Friday of the first holy week. It is well worth the time to read it.

Enjoy.

Happy Easter!

Easter 2010 (Pt. 7) | “Father, into your hands…”

Easter 2010 Meditations

The Seventh Word

44 It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, 45 while the sun’s light failed. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 46 Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last. 47 Now when the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God, saying, “Certainly this man was innocent!” 48 And all the crowds that had assembled for this spectacle, when they saw what had taken place, returned home beating their breasts. 49 And all his acquaintances and the women who had followed him from Galilee stood at a distance watching these things.  (Luke 23:44-49)

Meditation on the Seventh Word

Death, the final enemy, no longer has the power to terrorize or torment us.  The only power death has over us is the power we give it.  Those who have placed their trust in Christ can follow His lead into the presence of God.  These are words of comfort; words of peace; words of instruction.  The journey that Jesus has traveled has been long and, at times, difficult.  But we see here in the final moments that the reward is worth the cost.  “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!”  Jesus is dead.  The hope of Glory seems to have been lost.  We are left now with the heavy charge to contemplate these things.

Easter 2010 (Pt. 6) | “It is finished!”

Easter 2010 Meditations

The Sixth Word

30 When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished…  (John 19:30)

Meditation on the Sixth Word

We are drawing to the end.  Jesus has submitted himself to the full brunt and breadth of what God had intended in Jesus’ death.  Jesus looks out toward the crowds, both in front of him and those generations yet unborn, and with the little bit of energy he has remaining he completes the work for which He was sent.  There is nothing lacking or deficient in Christ sacrifice for our salvation.  He has paid the full price and has closed the book on His work.  Jesus has not faltered and he has not failed.  “It is Finished!”

Easter 2010 (Pt. 5) | “I Thirst”

Easter 2010 Meditations

The Fifth Word

28 After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.” 29 A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. (John 19:28)

Meditation on the Fifth Word

The true humanity of Jesus is now on full display.  The one that said he was “living water” now finds himself thirsting.  The loss of blood, the savage beatings that he has endured, the humiliation that He has suffered has sapped what little energy Jesus has left.  In this moment Jesus identifies with us as a people who continually go to dry and broken cistern for refreshment.  What we are challenged to see is that the only lasting satisfaction for us is to be found in Jesus.  And so Jesus thirsts so that we may never thirst again.  He invites us to drink deeply from the wellspring of His life and righteousness.  I encourage you to see and understand that Jesus’ identification with us is the clearest sign that faith in Him is the only true and genuine religion.

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