Monday Morning Music Ministry

4-11-22

By the reliable accounts, both historical and Biblical, there were few people gathered on the Jerusalem hill called Golgotha (“the Place of the Skull”) around Passover when three condemned men were put to death. Roman centurions, mostly; and scattered relatives of the criminals. Even friends generally were afraid to be present, as the condemned were outcasts sentenced to die by the most heinous manner the Romans devised – bodies nailed and hanging on wooden crosses – and guards likely were looking for associates of the criminals.

This day we now call Good Friday. Accounts differ about the name’s origin: an evolution of “God’s Friday,” or Good because it was, in fact, good that Jesus died for our sins.

As “fully man and fully God,” He could have halted the execution. He could have caused Pontius Pilate and the Jewish Elders to drop dead instead of their engineering His arrest and trial and torture. He could have summoned ten thousand angels to halt the crucifixion, and swept Him from the cross.

But instead Jesus submitted. It was, after all, the main reason for the Incarnation – why God became man and dwelt among us; why He fulfilled prophecies in uncountable ways; why He proved His divinity by wisdom, by miracles, by healings. Why He had to die.

In fact, for all intents and purposes, Jesus did not avoid, but figuratively climbed up that cross.

I have noted that experts consider crucifixion to be one of the most torture-laden forms of execution. Beyond the pain of spikes driven through the limbs, and hundreds of splinters slicing the body that hanged on the cross, the crucified victim actually died of suffocation, as the weight of their sagging bodies, and pericardial fluids, choked the heart and lungs.

Under Roman justice, the condemned usually were beaten or crucified, not both. Jesus was bound, whipped, tortured, spat upon, beaten about the face and kicked; and had a crown of thorns thrust on His head. He was flogged with the Roman whips that had sharpened bones or filed metal tips on the thongs, so with each of many scourges, the skin was shredded. Jesus was made to carry His heavy cross (the patibulum to which His wrists would be nailed) through Jerusalem’s streets.

When on the cross He suffered yet more. When He said He thirsted, a sponge with vinegar was thrust in His face. A mocking title was affixed over His head. He was goaded to save Himself, since He claimed to be the Son of God. I have written that the worst part of His suffering that Good Friday might have been the fact that His disciples, who had lived with Him for three years and seen the evidence of His divinity… deserted Him; hiding, not even around the foot of the cross.

Among the few there was His mother, Mary. “Behold your son,” He was able to say to her. Through tears, their eyes met.

If you and I could have been there, we would have seen how few people were present. Some artists, and recent movies like The Passion Of the Christ, actually have presented an accurate depiction of the ugly hill, the forsaken site, the three crosses (other condemned criminals on either side), the centurions, and scattered onlookers.

In a real sense, however, you and I were there. We, and all of humankind, were there during Holy Week, in fact. We would probably have welcomed Jesus on what we now call Palm Sunday; and we probably would have been part of the crowd several days later screaming for His crucifixion. Do you think you would have been any different than the average people in the city, driven to frenzy by lies, hate, and the leaders’ persuasion? The effects of “Cancel Culture” are not new.

Also, we probably would have denied, betrayed, and deserted Jesus just as the Disciples did. I received mail after I recently wrote that. “Not me!” some wrote… but even Peter, who had spent a thousand days at Jesus’s side, yet swore three times to officials that he didn’t know this “Jesus.”

No, you and I virtually were there, because when we sin, we offend God and justly deserve punishment. A perfect God cannot welcome us to His Heaven except that we are sinless… and that is what we become in His eyes when we accept Jesus’s substitution. A “Good” and loving plan of salvation for us… all the more exquisite when we realize the agony God designed by having His Son take upon Himself all the sins of the world. But in the meantime every sin is a nail through Jesus’s hand.

It is no stretch to picture ourselves as present during Holy Week; gathered around the foot of the cross. We were there. We can imagine, quite easily, that this miracle-man, the Son of God, looked down from the cross, and through the ages, at each one of us.

He meets our eyes. He knows us.

And we look up. We meet His eyes. Do we know Him? There are times in our lives we have avoided His gaze; we too have denied Him, even betrayed Him. He has knocked on the doors of our lives, and we have not always answered or let Him in.

But He offers forgiveness. All He has ever asked is that we believe He is God’s son and – as we see – is the sacrifice for our sins. And that He will be raised from death. His Blood, which we see in this imagining, is the payment for our guilt. This Calvary scene is, rather than awful, one of love – joy unspeakable and full of glory.

You have heard this: We ask Jesus how much He loves us; He says, “This much!” and spreads His arms wide; and then they nail those arms to the cross, and He dies.

An old Negro Spiritual recreates the scene, and the urgent message to our souls:

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?
Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?
Were you there when God raised him from the tomb?

Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.

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Click: Were You There When They Crucified My Lord

3-21-22

We can think about Easter all year, and we should. But the Lenten season invites us, makes us ready. The Truth of Jesus’s incarnation… His teachings… His miracles and healings… His willingness – or determination – to be sacrificed for the sin-penalties we deserve… His arrest, imprisonment, and torture… His betrayal… His suffering and crucifixion… His death… His Resurrection… His Ascension: there are things that should be true to us on any and every day of the year.

I mean, Easter is not just for Easter; Christmas is not just for Christmas. The importance and relevance of every moment of Jesus’s life, and the Gospel, should burn to us and through us, every moment of our own lives.

So if we contemplate the details of Holy Week and Easter during Lent, it is a good thing. We can do the same thing around, say, May Day or Hallowe’en too; but here we are. I often find myself imagining what it would have been like to be one of the Disciples. The streaming series The Chosen – the fellowship of Jesus and His followers – is doing a good job of that.

It has always amused me when skeptics and agnostics say that they would find it easier to believe in Christ if only they could see Him; have some tangible proof that He lived and was the Son of God. Why am I amused? Because the Disciples themselves – never mind the multitudes who were taught, fed, and healed – lived every day with Christ. They saw Him walk on water, feed multitudes, heal the sick, raise people from the dead; more things than books could hold. For three and a half years! Day after day, week after week!

… and yet when Jesus was in jeopardy – as He even foretold, just days before – these Disciples fled. They scattered like dry leaves on a windy street. And we think that we would act differently?

I have further guessed that compared to the beatings, torture, whipping, thorns pressed down on His head and nails hammered through his wrists and feet… that the worst suffering felt by our Savior was the betrayal of His friends, their abandonment of Him.

We fool ourselves – and dare to fool God – if we believe that we would have been any different than the Disciples in those days before the Crucifixion.

“Different” is the operative word. Let us understand that Jesus chose the Disciples because they were not different. They had different talents and backgrounds, yes; but they were ordinary people – no celebrities, no dignitaries – and they were no different than you and me. So we can identify. We can learn from their experiences, admirable and cowardly and… human.

A great lesson, drawn from the actions of the Disciples that week, is presented by the different choices of two of them, Judas and Peter.

Judas, from the little we know, was sort of the treasurer of the little group, at least handling affairs as Matthew also did. As is well known, Judas betrayed Jesus by accepting a bribe from Roman authorities to reveal Christ’s whereabouts, and further to identify Him by embracing Him, on cue, before centurions. Jesus was then arrested and thus began His “trial” and execution.

He betrayed Jesus.

Soon remorseful, he scattered those 30 gold pieces and hanged himself.

Peter, during those same hours of turbulence, was asked by authorities if he were associated with the Man who called Himself the Christ. Three times Peter denied even knowing this Jesus. When he heard a rooster, he was thunderstruck and remembered that Jesus recently had predicted, “Before the cock crows three times, you will deny Me.”

He denied Jesus. He knew Him… but denied knowing Him. Was it much different than betrayal? I don’t think so.

Peter, to me the most impulsive, sometimes random, and always most human of the Disciples, was remorseful too. But he did not hang himself. It is not recorded that he was at the cross – Jesus’s mother, Mary, remained faithful – but we know that he huddled in fear after Jesus died, with the remaining Disciples. He endured, avoiding the self-abnegation of Judas and the skepticism of Thomas… and he met the Resurrected Christ.

From the accounts, he was the “same” Peter while Jesus showed Himself and ministered and preached and healed for those 40 days after the Resurrection, and before Ascending to Heaven. And he seems to have been the same Peter, huddling in confusion in the Upper Room where Jesus had told them to wait.

Wait for what?

The Holy Spirit is recorded to have come upon them, and others, “as a mighty rushing wind.” After that, people were transformed. They spoke in “strange tongues,” the languages of angels and of foreigners. They were imbued with knowledge and power… and wisdom.

After that experience Peter became a mature leader. He might have remained impulsive, but now it was to establish the Church and plant communities of believers. On that day, the Feast of Pentecost, the Church was born, and lives yet today.

Judas had betrayed more than Jesus; he betrayed the hope of Salvation and Forgiveness that easily could have been his. Peter denied knowing Jesus, but he exercised that glimmer of hope that redemption was drawing nigh.

Are you a Judas, or a Peter? I don’t mean betraying or denying Jesus… because when we sin, as we all do, we betray Him and deny Him.

It is our choice, however, how to react; to be remorseful and turn inward like Judas, or to wait upon Jesus and His promises, His Resurrected power, to come to us. To embrace the hope of Christ’s forgiveness.

Easter is about that hope.

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Click: Whispering Hope

5-4-20

“Where Is Jesus?”

Some people in these troubled times call this out to the heavens, to God, to Jesus Himself as they deal with challenges to health, family, income, sanity.

“Where is your Jesus now?”

That is a question that friends – skeptics, cynics, and non-believers, especially – ask in times like these. To certain people in this post-Christian culture, it is a rhetorical question, a taunt.

This causes me to remember a challenging time of my own, and my family’s: years ago my wife was listed for a heart and kidney transplant. Both organs were failing, and she was wasting away in hospital. My mother was near death in Florida, and I simply had to be there with my father. Driving to the Amtrak station, my car was T-boned and totaled at a Philadelphia intersection. My kids were staying with friends, but other challenges, including financial ones, loomed.

Mercifully, a family of friends was watching my children; neighbors helped with food and bills. My pastor loaned us his SUV until we could get back on our wheels.

And so forth. I could not be there for my mother’s actual passing – which was hours after I left Florida to come home for Christmas. Nancy received her transplants on Valentine’s Day, and lived another 16 years. Things worked out, in unexpected ways.

When things returned to “normal,” I gave thanks to Jesus in a conversation with a writer friend who was one of those skeptics. He said, “Why do you thank Jesus? Listen to yourself! It was friends who took your children in. It was relatives who helped with meals. It was your pastor guy who loaned you the car… Not your Jesus.”

I never had articulated the perspective properly before; but I quickly answered, “Those things were Jesus. He was just working through friends.”

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We are grateful, always, for gifts and givers. And we bless and thank recipients too, because they provide us opportunities to exercise charity. Not only to do love, but to be love.

That is what God desires for His children, even if “getting there” seems awkward to our little selves and our expectations.

Let God run His world. He doesn’t  always require that we understand everything; just that we be obedient.

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“Where is your Jesus now?” skeptics ask now in these troubled days.

Of course a single death is grievous; and if it could have been prevented, tragic. But in the long view, I think this pandemic has caused more trauma, anxiety, dislocation, and grief, from fear than from deaths; or possibly more than negative aspects of plagues in the past. Apart from things we cannot now know, like possible manipulation and skewed statistics and overreactions, we suddenly live in a dystopia, the opposite of a utopia. This revolving planet has come to a standstill!

Where is our Jesus? Of course He is still present. Behind the black storm clouds, the sun still shines. The One who created the entire universe is greater than microscopic viruses. Of course. Is there sin (and therefore death and disease) in the world? Yes.

Is a tiny virus, sweeping across continents, much different, really, than giant tornadoes, or massive floods, or unexpected earthquakes? No. Can plagues be prayed away? Sometimes, but mostly our duty is to cleave to the Word of God and trust Him.

“Though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, fear no evil, for I will be with you.” He does not promise a detour from that valley; or avoidance of what lies in the shadows… but for me, trusting that He is with us is a real and present help in time of trouble.

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“Where is Jesus?”

There was a poignant time in history when that question was cried with intense emotion.

Actually, back to back: after Crucifixion, Christ was in the tomb for three days. Jews mocked. Romans dismissed. The followers of Jesus, despite having seen Him perform miracles and manifest the Incarnation, despaired. Even His mother grieved.

“Where is Jesus?”

Then He rose. Came back to life. In a restored body. As by a speedy miracle, as the word spread and people saw Him, the hundreds of prophecies became clear. He had foretold of His Resurrection, and by rising proved His divinity.

“Where is Jesus???”

Then for 40 days He roamed the land preaching. People saw Him; listened and believed. The skeptic called Thomas doubted, and was invited touch the wound that still graced His side.

Where is Jesus? WHERE IS JESUS? “Let’s go down to the river and see the man who conquered death!!!” Until the Ascension, Jesus spoke, ministered, and encouraged multitudes, as historical accounts affirm.

Between those appearances and rallies, He must have had quiet moments. He had to go from place to place. It was His practice during His earthly ministry to seek solitude at moments, and commune with the Father.

I have a little idea that during the quiet moments, maybe in dark nights between towns, He roamed alone… looking, perhaps, for individuals. Not crowds, but solitary souls wandering, maybe spiritually lost, who needed a touch of the Master’s Hand.

In fact He is still doing that – seeking out lost souls who need the touch of the Master’s Hand.

You might be one of those. In fact, we all are, at least at one time or another.

Where is Jesus? Closer than you think.

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Click: God Walks the Dark Hills

4-15-19

The week started great, remember? Jesus enters Jerusalem, hailed by throngs on all sides with praise and Hosannas.

In rapid succession, it dissolves. Conspiracy, trumped-up charges, accusations, kangaroo court trial, arrest, persecution, torture, betrayal, denial, imprisonment, humiliation, death sentence, crucifixion, agonizing death.

And the crowds that sang His praises only days earlier, now cursed and spat at Him.

What could be worse than that Friday? In world history, what could be worse – from the perspective of confused followers of Jesus, I have tried to picture the excruciating period between the death on the cross and the Resurrection.

Where did He go? What did we do? What about His promises? What happens now? Is hope gone…?

In the larger sense, for followers and observers alike, many would have seen irony in the fact that this day would come to be called Good Friday. Remember, the earth shook, the sky turned dark, the veil in the Temple was rent top to bottom. Even a Roman centurion said, “Surely this was the Son of God.” The Jewish historian Josephus, who never was to believe, nevertheless recorded the facts of the crucifixion, Resurrection, and Jesus’s subsequent appearances.

Indeed people still wonder, through it all, why it is called Good Friday.

“Good”?

There are etymological theories that the German Gottes Freitag (“God’s Friday”) or Gute Freitag (“Good Friday”) were the origins; the Ancient English Godes Friday (“God’s Friday”) is also cited. In parts of Europe the day is called “Great” or “Holy,” not “Good.” In Denmark the ancient Angle term “Long Friday” still survives. In Greek Orthodox practice, the day is called “Holy and Great Friday” in the Greek liturgy. In parts of southern Europe, “Holy Friday”; in middle Europe Karfreitag (“Sorrowful Friday”).

Clearly – no mystery – we understand that in God’s view, in His holy plan, the sacrificial death of His only-begotten Son was good for Him, and we humans, if we would realize it. We have a means to be reconciled by that substitutionary death.

Anyone who has lost a child knows how horrible it was for God to allow – no, to plan – the death of His son. But it was good; it was good for the rest of His children.

And it was long prophesied: What man meant for evil, God meant for good (Genesis 50:20). It was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer (Isaiah 53:10).

All for us.

That is good.

Specifically, all for you. You, and me, individually. I believe that if had been possible that you or I were the only sinners in history, God would still have delivered Jesus to the cross, that the Atonement would be applied even to you or me.

That is good!

Can we comprehend such Love? Don’t try; it is overwhelming. Rather than fully understanding, we should wholly respond… in gratitude, honor, praise, contrition, repentance, humility. In… faith.

That is good.

When we are able to sincerely thank God for his Goodness, we have a sense that the Crucifixion, as horrible as it first seems to us, is God saying “You’re welcome.”

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Click: The King Is Coming

Saturday, 4-21-19

Luke 23: 33 And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left.

34 Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots.

35 And the people stood beholding. And the rulers also with them derided him, saying, He saved others; let him save himself, if he be Christ, the chosen of God.

36 And the soldiers also mocked him, coming to him, and offering him vinegar,

37 And saying, If thou be the king of the Jews, save thyself.

38 And a superscription also was written over him in letters of Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew, This Is The King Of The Jews.

39 And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us.

40 But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation?

41 And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss.

42 And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.

43 And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.

44 And it was about the sixth hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour.

45 And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst.

46 And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.

47 Now when the centurion saw what was done, he glorified God, saying, Certainly this was a righteous man.

48 And all the people that came together to that sight, beholding the things which were done, smote their breasts, and returned.

49 And all his acquaintance, and the women that followed him from Galilee, stood afar off, beholding these things.

50 And, behold, there was a man named Joseph, a counsellor; and he was a good man, and a just:

51 (The same had not consented to the counsel and deed of them;) he was of Arimathaea, a city of the Jews: who also himself waited for the kingdom of God.

52 This man went unto Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus.

53 And he took it down, and wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a sepulchre that was hewn in stone, wherein never man before was laid.

54 And that day was the preparation, and the sabbath drew on.

55 And the women also, which came with him from Galilee, followed after, and beheld the sepulchre, and how his body was laid.

56 And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the sabbath day according to the commandment.

Luke 24: 1 On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them.

2 And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre.

3 And they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus.

4 And it came to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments:

5 And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead?

6 He is not here, but is risen: remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee,

7 Saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.

8 And they remembered his words,

9 And returned from the sepulchre, and told all these things unto the eleven, and to all the rest.

10 It was Mary Magdalene and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women that were with them, which told these things unto the apostles.

11 And their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not.

12 Then arose Peter, and ran unto the sepulchre; and stooping down, he beheld the linen clothes laid by themselves, and departed, wondering in himself at that which was come to pass.

13 And, behold, two of them went that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem about threescore furlongs.

14 And they talked together of all these things which had happened.

15 And it came to pass, that, while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near, and went with them.

16 But their eyes were holden that they should not know him.

17 And he said unto them, What manner of communications are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and are sad?

18 And the one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answering said unto him, Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things which are come to pass there in these days?

19 And he said unto them, What things? And they said unto him, Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people:

20 And how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death, and have crucified him.

21 But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel: and beside all this, to day is the third day since these things were done.

22 Yea, and certain women also of our company made us astonished, which were early at the sepulchre;

23 And when they found not his body, they came, saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, which said that he was alive.

24 And certain of them which were with us went to the sepulchre, and found it even so as the women had said: but him they saw not.

25 Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken:

26 Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?

27 And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.

28 And they drew nigh unto the village, whither they went: and he made as though he would have gone further.

29 But they constrained him, saying, Abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. And he went in to tarry with them.

30 And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them.

31 And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight.

32 And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?

33 And they rose up the same hour, and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together, and them that were with them,

34 Saying, The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon.

35 And they told what things were done in the way, and how he was known of them in breaking of bread.

36 And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.

37 But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit.

38 And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts?

39 Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.

40 And when he had thus spoken, he shewed them his hands and his feet.

41 And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he said unto them, Have ye here any meat?

42 And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb.

43 And he took it, and did eat before them.

44 And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.

45 Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures,

46 And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day:

47 And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.

48 And ye are witnesses of these things.

We are witnesses of these things. He is risen!

Click: The Night Before Easter

Easter 2016

An early Easter message. Appropriate, because I would like us to wrap Good Friday, the “world’s three darkest days,” the Easter Resurrection, and the Ascension all in one meditation. Besides, the Easter story was foretold many years before Jesus’s Passion – throughout the Old Testament, most comprehensively and accurately in the 53rd chapter of Isaiah. That’s an even earlier telling.

The essentials of Jesus’s life on earth are scarcely questioned any more, except by the intentionally scornful: which means that some people do not doubt, but rather reject. The fact of His Resurrection, on the other hand, is a dubiety to some. It is interesting to consider that people saw the risen Christ after the tomb, and yet not everyone believed. They believe Jesus somehow came back to life, but not that He was divine.

Many did come to faith. But even the Jewish historian Jospehus recorded the facts of Jesus’s life and ministry and miracles and resurrection – that Jesus mingled with people for 40 days – yet never came to belief himself. It is not unusual, frankly, to imagine people, even ourselves, to hear about a miracle, possibly witness one, and yet… shrug. Or consider it “one of those things we can’t explain.”

This happens, and it says less about a Resurrected Savior than it does about our stubborn, contrary, or lazy human nature.

Yet there were many records of That Week.

Jesus not only performed miracles, He was a miracle. Everything about His birth, life, and ministry were prophesied. He did amazing things; random things, sometimes, to bring blessings or to prove His divinity. He spoke amazing words, unassailable lessons. He was God incarnate; fully God and fully man, who loved and sorrowed, laughed and wept, ate and drank and traveled. He read minds, calmed storms, and healed the sick.

Yet vulnerability proved to be His major miracle. During His last week, He emptied Himself of divine prerogatives.

He went to Jerusalem, knowing death awaited. And more: scorn, insults, lies, torture, painful crucifixion. It is said that death on the cross is the most excruciating of slow deaths. Myself, I believe that the betrayal, denial, and abandonment of His friends was more painful than His physical end.

As a man, he prayed fervently, we know not all. As God, He willingly bore the humiliation and death, speaking only words like “It is finished” – it being the plan established before the foundations of the world: that this holy Incarnation would satisfy the substitutionary death we all deserve. If we believe and confess this belief, we are saved. Another miracle.

Our contemporary world wants us to believe strange things… strange lies. Not only that there is no God, but that there are no sins. Only mistakes and bad choices. And that medicines, or therapy, or education, or the government will make everything OK. Humankind has asserted mastery of our own souls for several centuries, ever more intensely, inventing reasons to reject God and deny His fingerprints on creation. Lo and behold, the past century was the bloodiest freaking 100 years in history, starring the most savage monsters a secular world could imagine.

Were the events of Holy Week in vain? Christ, with calm determination, fulfilled His destiny. He entered Jerusalem to public acclaim, preserving His humility. By the end of the week the Jewish zealots and the puppets of the Roman government caused people to scream for His murder. It happened… after what we mentioned: humiliation, injustice, abandonment, torture, and death that, perhaps, no mortal among us ever has endured.

He hung on the cross for three hours, comforted, at least, by His beloved mother who did not leave Him. He died; a spear was thrust in His side; the centurions affirmed His death; He was taken to a tomb, washed and prepared for burial, wrapped in cloths. A large stone sealed the tomb, guarded by Roman soldiers with special instructions.

Then, the three darkest days of humankind. What were those like, in Jerusalem? His enemies were satisfied that Jesus, the major troublemaker, celebrity, pretender in their eyes, was finally gone from the scene. But His followers – who should have known better, since they knew scripture and His prophesies – nevertheless despaired. They went into hiding: perhaps His fate would be theirs?

There are records of an earthquake, of stormy skies – of nature groaning – of the veil in the temple spontaneously ripping in two. Could His followers been more despondent and terror-stricken? What days they must have been!

But… Easter dawned. Jesus rose. He lived. He lives. Mary, having met Jesus in the garden, became the world’s first evangelist of the Good News when she ran and told the cowering Disciples.

The rest, to coin a phrase, is history. But it is not quite history as we know it. His story, literally. Mary and her friends saw, and believed. The Disciples, first scared and skeptical, believed, and saw, and believed in ever greater numbers. Jesus, in a transformed body, preached and blessed and taught and performed miracles. More people believed. Within a generation there were churches, gatherings of devout believers, not only in faraway Rome, but in pagan outposts like the island of Britain.

And after 40 days, the final prophecy fulfilled – more than a miracle, but the confirmation of His divinity – the bodily Ascension of the Christ into Heaven. “It is best for you that I go away, because if I don’t, the Holy Spirit cannot come. If I do go away, then I will send the Advocate, the Comforter, to you.” Thus, Christ in us.

But remember That Week. If you are ever tempted to think that your faith would be stronger “if you only could have seen the things of that week,” or if you hear others say that… remember that His Disciples, who lived every day with Him for three years, scattered like autumn leaves. Remember that people who had witnessed miracles wound up demanding His death. Remember that many who saw Him after the tomb still were skeptical.

You can believe in miracles – or not – but believing in Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God; confessing His Resurrection; and inviting Him to live in your heart and life, is the summation of This Week, and the Gospel itself.

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Have you listened to Handel’s Messiah at Christmastime? Even if you have not, I invite you to listen to an equally great masterpiece. The St Matthew Passion by Johann Sebastian Bach tells the story of Easter week. On (coincidentally) this week of Bach’s birthday, number 331, I offer a link to one its greatest performances, conducted by Karl Richter. The art direction is stark! Appropriate, but note the changing backgrounds, the over-arching cross, the mood reflecting the spiritual import. With English subtitles. Three hours, 22 movements. Be prepared!

Click: Bach: St Matthew Passion

3-30-15

In this changing world, it might be possible that some day the death penalty will be outlawed everywhere. On the other hand, if governments are being kinder and gentler with miscreants, we are seeing more summary death penalties these days – executions of infidels, troublemakers, and… “others.” I think of scimitars used by Moslems for beheadings, and remember when I was a child, I wondered if Jesus lived today, whether He would be put to death by firing squad or electric chair.

If so, would Christianity adorn its churches with representations of guns, or an electric chair, or a lightning bolt, or the symbol of poison we see on vials? Would Christian women wear jewelry in the shapes of a noose, or a sword?

It is not an impertinent question. It is pertinent if we think again, and perhaps with more focus, on the death of Jesus – and on the manner of His suffering and sacrifice. Experts on such things as torture say that crucifixion is one of the most horrible forms of meting out death in the charming history of our species. The forms of execution mentioned above surely are quicker and therefore higher on the scale of mercy. Burning at the stake was relatively quick, as were other “medieval” forms of torture and death, compared to crucifixion.

To be nailed to a cross, awful in itself, and left to hang and die, took several hours; sometimes longer. The arrangement of internal organs and the law of gravity combined to bring slow death, not so much by unbearable pain but by suffocation of the lungs.

But for a moment we can consider what else Jesus endured – aspects that were not usual with other Roman victims. The painful, mocking, bloody crown of thorns was unique to this condemned Man. Some prisoners were tied by rope, not nailed through the wrists and ankles, to crosses. Other factors were “either/or” in the Roman justice system: bearing the patibulum, the 100-pound crossbeam, through the streets to where the vertical wooden stipes awaited; whipping to within an inch of life; flogging by the worst instrument, the flagellum – not a normal whip or cat-o’-nine-tails, but leather strops with lead balls and animal bones filed to sharp points – would break the skin, catch it, and pull strips (“stripes,” as the Bible prophesied) off the back. Scourging, when ordered, often killed the prisoner, and seldom reached 40 in number, as Jesus endured. Of course, we know that He was mocked, poked, punched, and spat upon also, during His “trial.”

Over and above that – the combination of which few if any men ever sustained – I believe the worst thing for Jesus was the knowledge that, during those hours and days, He had been betrayed, denied, and abandoned by His followers, those who knew Him best. During this period of testing and trial, when fulfilling the Father’s plan and completing numerous details of Old Testament prophesies, when, perhaps, He was MOST human, the rejection by His friends and disciples must have hurt more than anything else. “The body they may kill…”

And Jesus went to the Cross. It was difficult (I say with irony), interrupted by all those things like trials, beating, scourging, humiliation, carrying a rough, heavy crossbeam along the via Dolorosa on lacerated flesh. I say that they interrupted the walk, because despite the agony – the human side of the Messiah asking the father if the “cup” could pass from him – it is true that, metaphorically, Jesus virtually scrambled up the Cross.

So we approach the Mystery of the Cross we can never fully comprehend.

Jesus knew His whole life that He would, as the lamb of God, be the Sacrifice for humankind’s sins. The Israelites had sought to please God by sacrifices of spotless lambs. God was pleased, at this moment, to offer His spotless son, without stain or blemish, as a sacrifice so that we, believing, might be cleansed of sin.

The Mystery further includes that Jesus did not merely die, as we have stated, but that His torment might have been worse than any individual has ever suffered.

The Mystery further includes that He suffered in silence. In his “trials” and hanging from the Tree, as ancient writings and hymns sometimes called the Cross

The Mystery further includes that He could have called down 10,000 angels to rescue Him, but did not. He might have struck His Jewish accusers dumb; or Pilate and his court dead, but did not.

The Mystery further includes that Jesus’ suffering and death were not only recorded in the harmony of the Gospels, some in more details than others, but cited by secular contemporary historians like Josephus. The predictions, details, and implications of the Cross are there for the world to see.

The Mystery further includes that we are told that our simple acceptance of Jesus’s substitutionary death on the Cross is the first, simple, requirement for our sins to be forgiven and to spend eternity with Jesus. (The other requirement is to believe and proclaim that God raised Jesus from the dead. “To be continued…”) So simple. Such a miracle. Such a mystery.

The Mystery further includes something that is not in the Bible, but I believe is totally consistent with every word in the Bible:

I believe that if every other person who ever lived, or ever will live, were sinless, as impossible as that would be – but stick with me – that Jesus Christ still would have sacrificed Himself; served his ministry; allowed Himself to be captured, tortured, and sentenced; and would have endured death, even the death of the Cross. He would have done this even for one individual out of human history.

For me. Or for you.

God’s love is as wide as a universe: without end, without walls or ceilings. But as laser-focused as to know the names of you and me. The facts of our lives. He knew us before we were born. He knows our all. He counts the hairs on our head.

He loves us that much. Jesus DID die for you, and me. The Messiah died for mankind, and, just as accurately, He died for you and me as individuals. A sacrifice not for “most.” Not for “many.” Not for 51 per cent of us, like in a democracy. He died that ALL might be saved as the human race deals with the invitation. But He also died for individuals, who make decisions as individuals. A mystery, really.

You and I were not in the ragtag group of scoffers and the curious – and His mother – at the foot of the Cross. Yet I believe that when Jesus looked down, through swollen and bloodstained eyes, He clearly saw… you and me. Individuals.

As we meet His gaze, we have to confront the Cross, and respond to all that it implies. A Mystery.

We become aware that every time we sin, with every act of disobedience or rebellion, we nail Him to the Cross as surely as the Centurions did. Do think how often you betray, deny, insult, and abandon the Savior? A Mystery… that chills our bones.

Behold the force through which the universe was formed, become human for a season and for our good (yes, Good Friday, thank God), enduring all these things and hanging limp on a Cross. Can we fail to respond to this? He died but He rose; He was not defeated but He conquered. He was very man, but is Very God.

Another Mystery: This Jesus is a King… who rules from a Tree.

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Click: When He Was On the Cross

4-2-12

“Ecce homo!” Pontius Pilate stood on his balcony and addressed the blood-lusting crowd. “Behold the man!”

Without knowing it, Pilate was being theological. “The Son of Man” was how Scripture referred to the Christ; and so did Jesus, about Himself. “Fully God and fully man.”

More than theological, Pilate was attempting to be just plain logical. “Look at this man!” Pilate said, in effect. “This sorry, battered, silent, modest, individual… THIS is whose crucifixion you demand of me?”

In the words of The Living Bible (Matthew 27:24,25), Pilate had tried logical arguments… as far as his conscience would take him. He told the crowd: “I am innocent of this man’s blood. The responsibility is yours!” And all the people yelled back, “We will take responsibility for his death—we and our children!” [The original Greek the passage reads, “His blood be on us and on our children.”]

The Romans were masters of many things. Various manners and devices of torture were among them. When someone was flogged, the Romans used not a normal whip, but one with many leather straps. The flagellum had as many as 12 thongs. More, they had sharpened pieces of metal or bone woven into their ends. The effect was not whipping but scourging: the prisoner’s back was punctured, laced, and stripped of flesh. Romans knew their torture.

Before this, however, Jesus was subjected to beating and kicking. The crown of thorns was not made from rose-bush stems; the thorns were long and piercing, like filed nails, and this was pressed upon his head. Before this, He was dragged, humiliated, mocked, and spat upon.

The crucifixion, preceded by this tortured man carrying the heavy, splintery cross through the rocky streets of Jerusalem, was another Roman invention. Nails through the ankles and wrists (not the hands, forensics studies teach us, else the body’s weight would have pulled the spikes through the fingers) permitted the body to hang at the perfect angle to prolong life until suffocation of the lungs became the cause of death.

A pertinent fact about the suffering and death of Jesus is that most Roman prisoners condemned to death usually experienced one or maybe two of these trials… seldom all of them. It is plausible that Jesus suffered as much as any human being has ever endured before dying. “Behold the man.”

And yet the worst part of Jesus’ experience, I think, was the betrayal of friends, the rejection of those He came to save, the abandonment by His disciples. Let none of us, not you or me, ever think that WE would have been different; that we would have been with Him till the end. His followers lived with Him more than three years, and saw miracles, experienced His love. But they scattered like leaves in an Autumn breeze. Those whom He raised from the dead; the crippled whom He made walk; the blind who could now see… it is not recorded that they were at the foot of the cross. What significance that the two Marys – His mother; and the woman who received forgiveness of her sins – were there. Family and forgiveness of sins: a foundational lesson to take away from that Good Friday.

To segue again from the historical and logical to the theological, besides a few grieving friends, Roman guards, and the curious, someone else was at the foot of the cross that day.

It was you and me.

We were not there physically, of course, but Jesus saw us. He looked down and looks at you and me. He looks through our eyes into our hearts. He sees our shortcomings and sins. But that look on His face said to us, “I am doing this for you. Whatever separation you have created for yourself by sinning against God does not have to condemn you any more! The old practices of blood-offerings and sacrifices for sins are over. Now. Believe in me as the Son of God, and accept this sacrifice.” Behold THAT Man.

I also believe, impossible as it would have been, that if all humankind up to that moment had been sinless – that if you or I had been the only sinners in God’s creation – that Jesus Christ still would have willingly gone to the cross. He knew what He was doing. After all, the Bible says that He was the agent of Creation, that through Him all things were made. He knew the plan… and He was willing to fulfill it. For you and me.

Behold that MAN.

The old spiritual, “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?” has countless verses, the traditional call-out structure that has resonated in worship songs among slaves, in bluegrass versions by singers like Wade Mainer, in folk renditions by Johnny Cash and others, touching millions.

Were you there? You were. Just as Jesus has been with us at all the times of our lives. Sometimes it causes me to tremble…

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This version of the old spiritual plaintively is sung a cappella by Russ Taff and a choir; with stark images from The Passion.

Click here: Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?