Alle…oops

Alle…

Oops. Hold on…

As you are reading this article it is still Lent. But it is April and Spring and it should be Easter!

And yes that celebration is coming. The end of this week we will gather to celebrate Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and then finally Easter! The resurrection of our Lord and Savior.

We are in that already but not yet, we already know that Jesus will rise from the dead, or has risen. Even though now we are in the waiting of Holy week.

And isn’t that really the life of the Christian, the disciple of Jesus. We are already living eternally with God through our baptism, yet we are still here stuck in our sinfulness.

Already, but not yet.

For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known, Paul tells the Corinthians. (1 Corinthians 13:12) We are there but can’t see it all around us, and yet we are not quite there yet. We know that we are a part of the kingdom, but we can’t fully understand it yet.

So hold on, and know the promises are true, just as we know in a few days we can again say Alleluia!

Christ is Risen!

anointed

It was two days before the Passover and the festival of Unleavened Bread. The chief priests and the scribes were looking for a way to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him; for they said, “Not during the festival, or there may be a riot among the people.” While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head. But some were there who said to one another in anger, “Why was the ointment wasted in this way? For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor.” And they scolded her. But Jesus said, “Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has performed a good service for me. For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish; but you will not always have me. She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial. Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.” Then Judas Iscariot, who was one of the twelve, went to the chief priests in order to betray him to them. When they heard it, they were greatly pleased, and promised to give him money. So he began to look for an opportunity to betray him. (Mark 14:1-11, NRSV)

This is one of those stores we think we know right.

I was looking for a picture for this devotional and I found a wonderful picture entitled Woman at Simon’s House. It is a picture of a woman with an open jar on the floor, and her rubbing Jesus’ feet and crying over them.

The problem with this picture is the description here in Mark doesn’t say anything about tears or Jesus’ feet.

The woman, who is not named in Mark, breaks the jar and poured the ointment on His head. Not His feet and there is no tears here.

The point of the story though is preparing Jesus for burial. Even the Son of God needs to be prepared for death and burial!

And Judas who played a necessary part in the whole plan…

 

kill him

Then he began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a pit for the wine press, and built a watchtower; then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. When the season came, he sent a slave to the tenants to collect from them his share of the produce of the vineyard. But they seized him, and beat him, and sent him away empty-handed. And again he sent another slave to them; this one they beat over the head and insulted. Then he sent another, and that one they killed. And so it was with many others; some they beat, and others they killed. He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ So they seized him, killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard. What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others. Have you not read this scripture: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes’?”  When they realized that he had told this parable against them, they wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowd. So they left him and went away. (Mark 12:1-12, NRSV)

When they realized that He was speaking of them as the ones who were the tenants they wanted to kill Him. But because the crowd loved Him, they were afraid of them.

So wouldn’t you think that maybe your reaction needed some changing?

God created the world and put everything in it it needed to exist. Then we came along, and mucked it up. He sent prophets to tell us we were wrong, and then the Son came. And did we think that if we killed the Son we could have it all?

God gives us all many chances but do we see the vineyard for the grapes?

We need to be listening and watching for where God is leading us and know that this is not our home.

We are merey managers passing through.

Palm or cloak or leafy branch…

When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.’” They went away and found a colt tied near a door, outside in the street. As they were untying it, some of the bystanders said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” They told them what Jesus had said; and they allowed them to take it. Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields. Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!” Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve. (Mark 11:1-11, NRSV)

Palm Sunday, the day the people herald Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. And they did it by shouting Hosanna and throwing palm branches in the ground for His donkey to walk across…

But here in Mark we see “Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields.” There are not palm branches.

It is cloaks and leafy branches. Which could be palms, but they could be something else also…

So what is so important about Palm Sunday?

It starts our week with Jesus, and the last days He has with the disciples. Thursday will be the last supper, and Friday is the dark day when the curtain of the temple is ripped. And that all leads us to Sunday!

But before we can use the A word again… We have to go to the tomb…

So enter with Jesus, knowing where it is going, but knowing the cross and the tomb don’t hold the final word!

by His stripes

Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him with pain. When you make his life an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring, and shall prolong his days; through him the will of the LORD shall prosper. Out of his anguish he shall see light; he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge. The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he poured out himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. (Isaiah 53:4-6, 10-12, NRSV)

I remember this verse in the King James version, “and by His stripes we are healed”

The NRSV says bruises… It doesn’t carry the same weight for me. He was punished and beaten, practically to death before His crucifixion. He was striped, literally His back would have been stripped of the flesh and had stripes running over it.

And by this we are healed and given a new life! This is the verse where the band Stryper got their name.

And it is a verse for us to remember what He did for us, so that we could be with Him!