Good Friday is more accurately Holy Friday, the Friday before Easter Sunday. It commemorates the day Jesus Christ was led to a Jerusalem hill, nailed to a Roman cross, and lifted high until he died a long and excruciating death. We don't celebrate Good Friday, but Christians do remember it.Why ... Continue reading
After Easter
April 10, 2023 By Leave a Comment
Some events change the world. When Hitler's tanks rolled into France, there was no longer any way to pretend that his ambitions could be contained or satisfied by a limited European conflict. When airliners brought down the New York twin towers, we knew that the ambitions of Islamic terrorists could ... Continue reading
Power, life, and love in the blood
February 13, 2023 By Leave a Comment
I'm going to talk about blood. If you're squeamish, you might look for a post about kittens and puppies.After working in our yard, I often return to the house with my arms covered in bleeding scratches and punctures. The desert is alive with thorns, many of them cleverly barbed and remarkably ... Continue reading
The real problem with sin
February 6, 2023 By Leave a Comment
Some men came carrying a paralyzed man on a sleeping mat. They tried to take him inside to Jesus, but they couldn’t reach him because of the crowd. So they went up to the roof and took off some tiles. Then they lowered the sick man on his mat down into the crowd, right in front of Jesus.Seeing their ... Continue reading
The demands of the cross
August 4, 2010 By 2 Comments
If anyone wants to follow in my footsteps, he must give up all right to himself, carry his cross every day and keep close behind me. — Luke 9:23, JB Phillips To endure the cross is not a tragedy; it is the suffering which is the fruit of an exclusive allegiance to Jesus Christ. When it comes, it is ... Continue reading
Before Easter comes…
March 21, 2008 By 2 Comments
Before Easter could come, he passed through betrayal, abandonment, false accusations, humiliation, mob rule and a judicial system disfigured by the lust for power, a system that mocked truth.Before Easter could come, he stumbled through a gauntlet of angry fists, hurled insults, a shower of ... Continue reading
Connecting Pesach and Easter
April 6, 2007 By 3 Comments
On this Easter weekend two millennia ago, Judaism and Christianity broke apart on the rough sawn beam of a Roman cross — and their conflicting interpretations of the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth.Strangely, I, a Gentile, am a follower of a Jewish rabbi. On Easter's cross God flung open the ... Continue reading
Celebrating greatness
February 5, 2007 By
In the morning, we celebrated communion, drinking grape juice and eating crackers in remembrance of Jesus' blood and body. We "celebrate," but in the older sense of the word. It's a time of solemnity where we recall our sin and seek the forgiveness of the One whose death was caused by our sin.We ... Continue reading
