Tag Archives: Bible

Easter Series, Part 3: Surely He Was the Son of God

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I have always wanted to prepare for Easter by taking the month leading up to that holiday and reflect on the events that make up what we call, Easter. I began that the other day with “When Jesus Says Your Name“. It was the story of Mary as she stands at the tomb, distraught over her Jesus being gone.

 

The second in the series, Bound For My Freedom, is the story of Asher, the young shepherd boy who sat next to Jesus in the stable, only to meet up with him again at the foot of the cross, as he assists his cousin Joseph in preparing Christ’s body with burial.

 

Today’s story, third in the series, is seen through the eyes of the centurion who saw the darkness of Good Friday turn to the light and hope of Easter. Enjoy!

 

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“For God so love the world that He gave His one and only Son…”

For many, that verse has been heard a thousand times and it can mean next to nothing. For others, they have heard Jesus died on the cross, yet leave that fact hanging in mid-air where it stopped, so as not to allow it to pierce their heart. They, like I once did, have heard the story of the cross like this: “Jesus died on the cross for your sins.” That’s pretty plain. Pretty simple. But was that all there was to it, really? Just a plain and simple fact?

The last six hours in the life of Christ can show you, once again, (or for what may be the first time), that for Jesus to die on the cross, was not so plain nor was it so simple.

Jesus has been up all night with a great amount of anguish. After all, He is the Son of God and knows the Father’s thoughts. He knows what lies ahead. He had spent these precious hours on His knees, praying in the garden of Gethsemane. His prayers are powerful, intentional and pleading. So emotive that crimson drops of sweat drip from His pores. In the middle of His prayers, He is apprehended as if a criminal.

He is taken away, only to endure three legal, yet not so just, trials. He is flogged – a lashing done with the use of a whip made of rawhide.

In a flogging, the whip that is used contains steel like balls in the middle of the rawhide and at the end, pieces of bone that cut glass. The criminals in Jesus’ day were put on a pole and the authorities would then swing the whip. As it would swing around the criminals body, the balls would hit and cause major contusions to the organs as the pieces of bone cut into the flesh. When pulled out, it ripped away the flesh. Thirty-nine lashes was the legal limit, for few individuals ever lived beyond those 39 lashes.

That’s what Jesus gets.

When Christ lay, most likely almost dead, they strip him of his clothes. They spit on Him. They shove a twisted crown of thorns on his head. They strike Him on the head. They mock him as king.

Emotionally he is exhausted. Physically he is almost dead. Mentally he is drained. And yet, it doesn’t end there. In such a weakened condition, He isn’t able to carry the load of the cross – my cross. But he was the One chosen to bear it and He is led off to Golgotha – the hill on which he must die.

The nails are like spikes and he winces with each strike of the mallet that pounds each one into His hands and feet. Hanging there, they hurl insults at him and He does not retaliate; when he suffers, he makes no threats. Instead, he entrusts Himself to His heavenly Father, who judges justly.

A continual life of obedience, even in the face of humiliation. Obedience in the face of mockery. Obedience in the face of a death He had every power at hand to stop. Still, he endures. They aren’t finished with him yet.

They lift up sour wine for him to drink. They insult him, take his clothes and cast lots for them. It’s all a game to them. It’s all about taunting what appears to be the underdog. It’s all about obeying the rules of the mighty and twisting them to fit your pleasure.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son…”

He doesn’t use His words to bite back. He doesn’t say, “I’ll get you!” or, “Come on up here and say that to my face!” or, “Just wait until after the resurrection, buddy!” No, these statements were not found on the lips of Christ. Instead, He left the ways of judgment up to God and demanded no apology. Instead, he spoke in their defense.

“Father forgive them, for they don’t know what they’re doing!”

How Jesus, with a body wracked with pain, eyes blinded by his own blood, and lungs yearning for air could speak on behalf of some heartless thugs is beyond my comprehension.

Jesus didn’t die from loss of blood. He didn’t die of pain. He suffocated, for to die by means of a crucifixion is to die of suffocation. As His arms are nailed cross-ways above, soldiers bend his legs and put a nail between both ankles so that he is able to push up with his legs and pull himself up but as he hangs there, his arms quickly dislocate. As he tries to pull himself up, his organs begin to slide down and the pain of pulling himself up, is compensated by trying to get a breath and he suffocates.

“The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life …

No one takes my life from me…

I lay it down on my own accord.

I have the authority to lay it down or to take it up again…”

A centurion sits nearby. He watches the three men who are lined up on crosses – no respect, no cause for care or concern, no dignity – just pieces of meat. A conversation develops between the center man and the one to his left. The centurion can’t hear much but he definitely hears a proclamation by the man on the left that this man called Jesus is innocent. The rumble of voices quiet and the world grows freakishly silent.

As the centurion stands, he notices that the man in the middle is lifeless but out of somewhere, the lifeless body musters strength to lift its head upward and like a bolt of lightening and the roar of thunder he proclaims, “It is finished.”

The centurion takes three quick steps toward and falls at the foot of the cross of Christ. Not because he suddenly realizes just who this is that he has hung up to die, but because he loses his balance. The earth is shaking as the skies grow dark with anger.

He looks up into the face of this man, so near to death. Jesus looks down. His arms outstretched, hammered with nails the rugged post, He is unable to embrace this one who now understands. They lock eyes and in that instant, he falls under the grace of God and states a truth that will ring throughout history:

“Surely this was the Son of God.”

The faith of the centurion was born that day at the foot of the cross and forgiveness was poured down over him by the crimson blood of Christ. And, he weeps.

“Surely this man was innocent.”

Surely, He was.

 

 

 

Understanding What The Bible Is Really About

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I attended a seminar once by the name of TERM. TERM is an acronym for The Emmaus Road Message. Many believers and non-believers for that matter, don’t know what the Emmaus Road is – or was.

After Jesus was crucified and resurrected, He appeared to three of His disciples, out for a mid-day stroll. Approaching them, He asked what they were up to, as they were in deep conversation about something that had them in a frenzy. They didn’t recognize Him and asked Him why He hadn’t heard what all the ruckus was about. “Haven’t you been around? Don’t you know what’s going on around here?” they may as well have said and in so many words- and did just that.

He asked them to explain, which they did. They told Him that their teacher, Christ himself, had been crucified and promised to show up afterward and they were trying to figure out what He had meant because as far as they knew, He hadn’t.

So, He took them, literally through storytelling, on a ‘trip’ and beginning with creation, told them the message of the Bible.

A similar story is told by Stephen in the book of Acts, when he is being questioned before the Sanhedrin. He recounts the history of the Bible, beginning with creation.

Why share the message of salvation in this way? Because to understand God’s Word, you have to start at the beginning. When you read a novel or an article, you don’t start in the middle. You start at the first sentence and read to the end. If you jump around, you have a bunch of pieces that you’ve now got to put together in some sort of order so that the story makes sense and if you get them out of order, there is confusion.

John Cross, Bible teacher and author of The Stranger On the Road to Emmaus, once said, “People can’t get excited about sharing something they don’t understand and you aren’t going to want to share God’s word if you don’t understand it.” I would one step further and say, you can’t understand it if you don’t know it. Understanding something involves learning about it, studying it, spending time in that area. When you get to know something really well, you begin to not only know it, but you understand it.

The Bible is a letter of love, a story of redemption. But it’s so much more. It is filled with stories of grace and tales of mercy. It sings of joy and whispers hope and overflows with forgiveness. But it’s all done in an organized way. If we just learn/study the New Testament, we fail to see not only see the significance that the Old Testament had/has with the New Testament, but also how it relates to life today. The flood, the tabernacle and all its adornments, the judges, Adam and Eve’s encounter with Satan – how do these stories relate to the stories of the New Testament and to us now? Most people don’t get the full picture. I know I didn’t for a very long time.

That’s why it’s important to start at the beginning and learn God’s story to us in a chronological way. The pieces will begin to fall into their proper place and when you’re finished, you have a picture that makes sense. A picture of God’s love for mankind.

A good resource for helping you go through God’s word and understanding it more fully is the book mentioned above entitled, The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus, written by John Cross. It is one of the best resources that I have happened across in helping believers, young and old alike, in understanding the message of God’s word. It is a great resource for small group studies, one on one studies, and also for those wanting a down-to-earth, easy-to-understand, not-in-your-face account of what the Bible is about.

Just how well do you understand the Bible? If your answer is ‘not well’, it’s never too late to start.

Check out the resources available by  visiting this website for more information: GoodSeed USA.

**Earaches, Heartaches, and Doorways

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When my son was born, until the age of almost three, he had constant ear infections. After the third or fourth time, it became easier to identify that another was coming on and I could get him to the doctor before it became too painful. Most of the time.

I do recall one experience of having that motherly instinct of knowing he was getting another and taking me in. His regular doctor was out and another doctor saw him. He assured me after checking him briefly that there was no cause for worry. I wanted to assure him that I was most certain he was wrong.

At twelve o’clock that night, my son woke up screaming, his ear filled with pain. I did everything I could to help him. I gave him Tylenol. I held him. I rocked him. I cried with him. He screamed in pain until morning.

A few weeks ago, I had an ear infection. It began with a gradual achiness followed by intense pain and pressure for about five days, at which time I felt it was going to burst and to be quite honest, I almost wanted it to just to relieve the pain and the pressure.

No one ever gave me Tylenol. No one held or rocked me or saw me crying in the dark when I could not sleep because the pain was so intense, but then, they did not know because I was not crying out in agony.

This is what I learned…

When my son, at the age of two, was in pain, he writhed in discomfort and screamed for release from the grip of his ear infection. Oh how I wanted to comfort him and hold him tight so that he knew he was not alone. I rocked him to try to soothe him and as I held him closely, I cried with him, wanting badly to be able to take his pain away.

When I was in pain a few weeks ago, for the most part, I kept it inside. No one else needed to hear how much it really hurt. No one could rock me and comfort me and it made me think… Isn’t that what God wants us to do with him? Yet, we try to keep the pain in our lives and the heartache we experience hidden deep inside, when all the while He is waiting for us to cry out to Him for help.

I was chatting online last night with a friend and he was saying that one of his friends was not going to be able to do an event that they had planned for this year. He said the other person had been having some recent struggles and had to cancel. Then he withdrew and ‘disappeared’ (not literally) from his network of friends. My friend made a comment that went something like this: “I’ve told him there’s still a spot for him on the team, but he’s got to walk through the door.”

I liked that. We sit and cry but we do not run through the door screaming to God for relief. We do not writhe in pain when it hurts so bad inside that we think we cannot tolerate it for another minute. A foreclosure on the only home you have known. A divorce. An illness. The loss of a loved one. You lose your job. The list goes on.

When a child cries out in pain, the parent responds immediately. When he whimpers and sits off to the side, if the parent does notice, s/he probably knows it is not a life-threatening issue or the child would be screaming as loud as he was able. The child that is crying out for mercy gets mommy or daddy by their side – immediately.

I am not saying that if we talk to God politely, He is going to ignore us, but there is something to be said about crying out to Him. Sometimes that is the only thing we can do. Sometimes that is the best thing to do. To become like a child and let Him hold you and rock you. Let Him soothe you and wipe the tears as He wraps you safely in His arms.

He is waiting to love you. It is up to you to walk through the door.

**The Promise of A Rainbow

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God always keeps His promises

God always keeps His promises

Today I saw a rainbow.

I am utterly fascinated by a rainbow. The translucent colors. The arc. The brilliance. Most of all, the promise of a rainbow.

There was a time when God was not keen over the condition of the world. In fact, it was at its worst at that point. Immorality, I imagine, was at its peak. Idolatry was no doubt running rampant. Theft, murder, dishonesty, and more were most likely at an all time high. But there was one little man who God saw through heaven’s telescope that was different. I imagine, a quiet man who kept to his own but was not afraid to stand for truth and righteousness. A man whom God found favor with and therefore, became chosen to do a unique task. He was chosen to build an ark.

So he did. Somehow in his utmost faith, I imagine somewhere, on some day as he pounded stakes into holed to hold things together, something told him he was crazy. And yet he pounded and believed, had unfaltering faith and hung onto hope. Crazy or not, he had heard a Voice tell Him to do something incredible. It wasn’t a question of ‘will you’. It wasn’t an option of ‘are you interested’. It was a command to just do it. ‘Build an ark’. Instructions followed and Noah began the overwhelming and daunting task of building the biggest boat known to mankind up to that day.

And so he obeyed and built an ark. A big cruise liner for every species of animal known to mankind. They would not have to forage for food for the next 40 plus days. It would be brought to them on a silver platter (okay, so maybe it was a gopher wood platter) as they laid back and took it easy for the next two months or so.

And while Noah and his family catered to their traveling zoo, it rained and it poured and it didn’t stop for forty days and forty nights.

I imagine it was a bittersweet time. Noah undoubtedly had closed the doors to the ark to the ridicule and mockery of the world, but he also closed the doors to people who were also his friends. Sailing on his vessel most likely gave him a lot of time to think of who was left behind to drown in a sea of regret. Friends, extended family members. I am certain if Noah was who God thought he was, he had compassion for these people, even if they weren’t the cream of the crop.

I’m sure Mrs. Noah had the same thoughts. She probably cried for her fellow quilting bee partners. She probably wept for her aunts and uncles, nieces, nephews. There would be no more family reunions, women’s weekly Bible studies, or gatherings of teaching the younger women how to prepare for marriage. Those days were gone and new days were to come.

Bittersweet.

And so it rained and it rained and it rained and after forty long days, it quit. Can you imagine what Noah and his family thought at that moment? God promised it would rain for forty days and forty nights. They were probably gathered around the hay bale eating breakfast and stopped chewing and looked at each other in wonderment. It had stopped. The rain had stopped. The pitter-patter of raindrops that pelted non-stop against their vessel for the last forty days had stopped. Just like that.

I cannot imagine what must have gone through their minds, but I’m sure excitement was in the midst, somewhere. They probably jumped up and ran to the poop deck. It was true. The rain had stopped and the clouds were dissipating as quickly as they had gathered weeds before. God had kept his promise. Not only had it poured buckets upon this little family’s life, but after forty days, it had stopped just as amazingly as it had started.

In the excitement, I’m sure Noah must have said, “Oh, wait – the dove – I’ve got to get the dove.” And so the dove was sent out and returned empty handed. No land. Repeating the process every day or so, it finally returned one day with an olive branch in it’s mouth. More excitement. Land was breaking forth the tides of the storm that had held them bound in the traveling zoo. Soon they would be grounded and able to exit and loose the animals back onto the earth.

In all the activity that was taking place, something else happened. Something magnificent. Something never evidenced before. The Noah family, standing on deck – a parrot perched on Shem’s shoulder, a monkey sitting on Noah’s, a snake coiled around Ham’s arm – stood wide-eyed with their mouths open. Never had they seen anything so beautiful before. (Obvious paraphrasing going on…)

There in front of them, spread across the entire sky draped an arc of brilliant colors. Red, orange, yellow, green, purple, blue. They were awestruck. Before them, stretched from one end of the earth to the other was a magnificent rainbow.

And God said, “I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”

When God approached Noah in his vineyard many months prior to this moment, He made a promise that He was going to send rain to flood the earth. He promised to save Noah and his family by way of an ark. He promised it would rain forty days and nights. There was a promise in that promise that it would not last forever. And now, Noah and his family stood gazing upon that rainbow and God made another promise. To never do that again. He would never send another flood to destroy the earth.

Noah could believe God. Noah’s faith was strong. He had watched God make promises in the past and he had watched God keep each one. He knew that God would keep this promise.

Today I saw a rainbow with brilliant color so red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. It was absolutely beautiful. And when I saw it, I smiled. There were dark clouds with windows of blue sky. And then there was the rainbow.

I remembered what the promise of the rainbow was and how God has kept his promise. And each time I see a rainbow I remember how God keeps all of his promises. And it makes me smile. And it renews my hope and I am encouraged and reminded that even on the darkest of days, God will be there because God always keeps His promises.

That’s the promise of a rainbow.