Tag: <span>God’s love</span>

All who have experienced soul-ripping grief at the death of a loved one would agree that time seems to stop.

Nights are endless, days drag like boulders pulled by a plow. Saying goodbye produces its own unutterable pain, but the days between death and funeral and burial—though perhaps filled with practical details—seem hours longer than the actual twenty-four. Although we may dread the more public acts of farewell, there is the incongruous something within us that cries to “just get it over with.”

Could this be similar to why we joyfully anticipate the glory of Easter Sunday but do our best to ignore—or at the very least de-emphasize—the emotionally-draining events of Holy Week? To shop for colorful spring clothing is far more satisfying than symbolically wrapping a rough towel around our waists to humbly serve others as Jesus did at the washing of feet.  What joy in preparation for a sumptuous Easter Sunday family reunion meal while how meager—and heart-rending—to contemplate the meaning of the bread, wine and bitter herbs that Jesus and his friends ate just before going out to the Mount of Olives. Triumphant is the music of “Christ, the Lord, Is Risen Today.” Somber are the notes of Braham’s Requiem.

New clothes, good food with friends and family and uplifting music are all rightful celebrations of the resurrection, what the Apostle Paul preaches as the bedrock of our faith. But I wonder how much more meaningful would be our Easter joy if we first took the time and concerted effort to walk thoughtfully through Jesus’ last days, if we asked God to let us more deeply glimpse his agony of relinquishment in Gethsemane, if we wept over his human cry, “I am thirsty.”

Many churches of a more liturgical nature practice what is known as the Easter Vigil where individuals gather in the darkness of Saturday night to read scripture and contemplate the sadness that surrounded Jesus’ followers after his death and burial, a darkness that represents all the meanings of darkness: hidden and secret sins, the darkness of the world and of our hearts. At a point soon after midnight, one candle is lit to symbolize Christ’s resurrection and members of the congregation light their own small candles from the larger one. Those who have participated in such a service of remem-brance and celebration relate how their view of Easter has been forever changed.

While this may not be practical or possible for all, let me encourage you to not avoid the pain of walking with Jesus through the days between Palm Sunday and Easter. I assure you that the sunrise of Easter will never be more glorious!

by Marilyn Ehle
Used by Permission

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More Easter Reading:

Who’s Got the Body?   A short, documented examination of evidences for Jesus’ resurrection.  By Rusty Wright

The Power of Resurrection – by William S. Stoddard

Touched by the Risen Lord by Elfrieda Nikkel

Jesus has Forgiven you, but Have you forgiven Yourself ?

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thoughts by Marilyn Ehle Thoughts by Women

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

Author Linda Harvey received an email.  It began, “I’m a bisexual pagan who loves Jesus.”

Linda prayed about her response. She was seeing more and more of this from teens.
But the ”
Jesus” in whom those teens believe is a false Christ, not the biblical Jesus.

So, Linda responds by explaining who Jesus really is and why it’s so important to know the real One.

Friend, what about you?  Do you know the real Jesus?
Even popular TV stars today claim to be “
Christians”, but they doubt that sin or Satan exists.

The “Jesus” they worship is touted as the “divine within” and just one of many ways to God.

Yet the real Jesus claimed and is the ONLY way to God.
He alone claimed to be able to forgive our sins, our wrongdoings.

By Vonette Bright
Used by Permission

 

thoughts by Vonette Bright Thoughts by Women