Saturday, April 07, 2007

Good Friday

When talking theology with a friend Thursday night the conversation at some point turned to the unfathomablility of God’s ways. He is truly far above us and our finite minds. God’s plan on redemption was the epitome of “not our ways”. The Jews thought that they knew how God was going to save his people. As it happened, they where dead wrong.

The Suffering Servant and the Victorious King are one. The Lion of Judah is also the Lamb that was Slain.

It is finished! The price is paid.

Before the throne of God above
I have a strong and perfect plea:
A great High Priest who’s name is Love
Who ever lives and pleads for me...
Because a sinless Savior died my sinful soul is counted free
For God the Just is satisfied to look on him and pardon me.

Sunday, April 01, 2007

Blessed is He Who Comes in the Name of the Lord!

When the large crowd of the Jews learned that Jesus was there, they came, not only on account of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead.
So the chief priests made plans to put Lazarus to death as well,
because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus.
The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem.

Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, "Go into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, 'The Lord needs them,' and he will send them at once."

They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them.
Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!"

And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, "Who is this?"

And the crowds said, "This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee."

And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons.
He said to them, "It is written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer,' but you make it a den of robbers."
And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them.

But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, "Hosanna to the Son of David!" they were indignant, and they said to him, "Do you hear what these are saying?"

And Jesus said to them, "Yes; have you never read, "'Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise'?"

His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him and had been done to him.
The crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to bear witness. The reason why the crowd went to meet him was that they heard he had done this sign. So the Pharisees said to one another, "You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him."

John 12:9-12, 16-19, Matthew 21:2 7-16