Lamentations

Do you want to drive home the crucifixion?  Do you dare to spend a moment on the cross with Jesus?  Then read through Lamentations but every line that refers to Israel, Judah or the people of God, change to Jesus.

"[You] sit on the ground,

    [Jesus is] silent.

[You] cast dust on [your] head,

     [you] have put on sackcloth;

the [beloved Son of Man]

    [has] bowed [his] head down to the ground.

My eyes have spent all their tears;

    my stomach is in torment,

my heart is poured out on the earth

    because of the destruction of the [Son of God],

because [Jesus] faint[s]

    in the public squares of a city.

To [his mother he says],

    “Where is the bread and wine?”

as [he] faint[s] like the wounded

    in the public squares of a city,

as [his] life is being poured out

    onto the bosom of [his mother].

What can I say for you? What can I compare to you,

    O [Son of the Most High]?

To what can I liken you so that I can comfort you,

    O [True Child of Zion]?

For your destruction is as vast as the sea;

    who can heal you?"

What is the church in the time between? Working, watching and waiting...

What is the church in the time between?

"“A little while and you will see me no more, and again a little while and you will see me. So some of his disciples said to one another, “What is this that he is saying to us, ‘A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me,’ and ‘Because I am going away to the Father’?” So they kept on saying, “What is this that he is saying, ‘A little while’? We do not understand what he is speaking about!”
Jesus knew that they were wanting to ask him, and he said to them, “Are you deliberating with one another about this—that I said, ‘A little while, and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me’? Truly, truly I say to you, that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; you will become sorrowful, but your sorrow will change to joy. A woman, when she gives birth, experiences pain because her hour has come. But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the affliction, on account of the joy that a human being has been born into the world. So you also are experiencing sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy from you."  John 16


“You must be prepared for action and your lamps burning. And you, be like people who are waiting for their master when he returns from the wedding feast, so that when he comes back and knocks, they can open the door for him immediately. Blessed are those slaves whom the master will find on the alert when he returns! Truly I say to you that he will dress himself for service and have them recline at the table and will come by and serve them. Even if he should come back in the second or in the third watch of the night and find them like this, blessed are they! But understand this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief was coming, he would not have left his house to be broken into. You also must be ready, because the Son of Man is coming at an hour that you do not think he will come.”
And Peter said, “Lord, are you telling this parable for us, or also for everyone?” And the Lord said, “Who then is the faithful wise manager whom the master will put in charge over his servants to give them their food allowance at the right time? Blessed is that slave whom his master will find so doing when he comes back. Truly I say to you that he will put him in charge of all his possessions."  Luke 12

What is the Church? Righteous.

What is the church?  And what can we liken it to in Genesis 15?

"And he (Abram) believed in Yahweh, and he reckoned it to him as righteousness."

God has made all the promises.  God has done all the heavy lifting.  Literally, He has lifted all the heavy things.  Your Sin.  Your death.  Your punishment.  Your obligation to worship Him as God.  Your righteous life which you should lead before a loving Creator Father God.  Your obedience.  All of these things were lifted up upon a wooden cross.  All of these things were bled for.  All of these things were despised and cut off.  All of these things bore the full wrath of the Justice of God.  

They are paid for.  It is finished.

The church are those who believe this.  The church are those who are affected by this and effected by this and changed by this belief.  The church are those who attempt to live according to this belief.  

You see, i must say 'attempt' for on this side of death, none but Jesus did it completely or correctly but because he did 'it is credited to (us) as (if it were our) righteousness.'

Good Friday

 

Good Friday. 

Right now you have been up all night, first praying but then dragged to and through a mock trial.  You have been beaten and spit on, derided.  In a few hours, they will drag you up to Pilate, a foreigner, a pagan for yet another farce of a trial.  You will then be dragged to Herod for more of an interrogation.  But there you will be beaten and mocked some more.  Then back to Pilate where he will condemn you upon a political expediency.  Better one man die than many in an uprising.  And he lose his job if not his life.  With great power comes great anxiety.  And so he washes his hands and signs your death bill.  But first, you are flogged, scourged, flagellated.  Your skin torn off.  A crown of thorns, carefully woven by some sadist, is mashed down onto your head.  The king of sin, the king of the fall then tries to carry his own cross but is unable.  A Libyan Jew is forced to carry it for you.  Or with you.  You walk the streets of Jerusalem, staggering from pain and the weight of the all the world’s sin.  You who has never sinned, now is forced to endure the punishment of it, the separation from the Father, communion is broken.  Love is broken.  Now there is only wrath.  The wrath of the Father pours out on you, the faithful and true and undeserving son.  The only flesh born ever that did not deserve the wrath of God from birth. 
 

By around nine o’clock they will have nailed you to the wood and hoisted you high into the sky.  They offer you a drugged wine and you refuse.  Though when you do cry out for drink, they offer you only sour wine.  Vinegar.  Even those in the same predicament as you mock you from their own crosses where they pay for their own sins.  Save one.  Who begs you to but remember him.  Who recognizes your innocence.  Three hours you hang there.  The sky goes dark.  You cry out to God the Father as but God.  You declare it all done.  All the work of all creation finally finished.  And you commit your spirit into your Father’s hands.  The earth quakes, the veil in the temple is torn in two.  There is now no separation between us and you, the profane and the holy, we have been made clean by your finished work. 

By tonight, before darkness falls and the Sabbath begins, they who adored you in secret will finally make public their declaration by coming and asking for your body and preparing it for burial and placing it in their own tomb.  Freshly cut.  Never used.  A stone is rolled over the entrance.  It is sealed with the governor’s seal.  Guards are set and the world wanders away, your followers to hide behind locked doors in confusion and despair, your detractors behind smug self satisfaction, your executioners behind their ignorance.  Darkness falls.
 

Why we're all not smoking craters by now.

i heard a man say again today that there are many paths to God. He believed that maybe in four or five generations that Man was going to get it right. We were all working toward harmony apparently. Aside from this being completely antithetical to the Bible... it's Pollyannish Denial on a Psychotic scale. This guy cannot be watching the same news i am.

All day long, the more i thought about what he said, the angrier i got. i let it slide at the time because i had already gone toe to toe with this guy a couple of weeks ago and i had already gone head to head with another member of the group this morning and i'm trying to only pick on one heresy a day. Besides that, we were in a Bible Study with almost twenty guys, i wanted to see what, if anything, someone else might say in response.

Here at home though and all day at work, the man's words and my anger have been bouncing around...bouncing around, sparring, jabbing, testing defenses and poking each other in tentative ways. It was just a feeling at first but the punches got harder and sharper, faster and more wicked until just a few minutes ago when the ground beneath my anger suddenly crystalized into perfect, fiery, resonating clarity...

Jesus. Was. God!

That statement should echo in your head with white, hot thunder!

He was not a nice teacher, a guru, a life coach, an energy force, a flying spaghetti monster or your homey. He was GOD, YHWH! The Creator of Everything! Not the Ultimate Power in the Universe! He made the Universe! On a whim!! To say that God came, as a peasant; a pimply, pathetic, Jewish peasant; did what we could never do and did it perfectly and in perfect humility, died FOR US and then said, "Finished. No one has to do anything more now to be right with God. Just believe i did this." To say all that might be true but it's just one way of many for us to achieve Heaven or Nirvana or whatever you want to call it, is to walk right up to YHWH and open hand slap him in the face! You have dissed God! You mock his deed. You mock his love. You mock his compassion. You mock his mercy. You mock his grace. You mock GOD! How dare you!!

The more clear this thought became to me the angrier i got! The more i envisioned people, casting judgment on GOD for being so narrow minded as to say He is the only Way, (How intolerant. How exclusive. How dare he! How dare He? He's GOD!! That's how dare He!) the more furious i became. The more furious i became, the more i thought about how my anger must have paled next to the angels' and the Father Himself as Jews and Gentiles alike did just that to Jesus moments before the cross finished God's most amazingly loving, transforming, totally selfless work. The more i thought about this Jesus stopping all of Heaven from wreaking perfect justice on the earth at one insult, one more spit in the face after another, after another, after another, the more i fell in love with this Jesus! He didn't retaliate. He didn't even speak. He just took it. God let's us insult Him. God let's us bitchslap him! All in the hope that someday, somehow, we may realize what we've been doing and beg his forgiveness. How can you not love this God?? How can we not warn them??