Sing along together now!
You don't have to think anymore,
Just check your brain here at the door!
Watch this trailer to be truly frightened. ¶ 9/14/2006 07:00:00 PM 0 Comments
Daily readings
Job 1:1-22
Acts 8:26-40
John 6:16-27
Psalter
Morning 73 Evening 74-76
Higher Things
The movie The Passion of Christ came out a few years ago to rave reviews by Christians. But what about the rest of the world? What did they think? It must have seemed pretty bizarre.
If you didn’t have any context for the events of Jesus’ last hours, it must’ve appeared like some surreal horror story. Here you have this innocent man, accused of heresy and sedition, beaten beyond recognition, forced to carry a cross, and then nailed to this cross to die a horrible death. What kind of God allows this to happen to His Son?
We know what kind of God not only allowed this to happen, but planned it all along. Our God is a God of love, grace, mercy and forgiveness. Atonement had to be made for the sins of the world. God was the only one capable of paying the enormous debt of our sin.
A holy God could not tolerate His creation to be unholy. Our Lord Jesus Christ took it upon Himself to pay the price for our sins. He suffered our punishment by dying our death. God placed the weight of sin on the divine/human shoulders of our Lord Jesus Christ. And when the price was paid, salvation was complete. There is nothing left undone.
To the world, this seems foolish. Surely there is some sort of payment we must provide for eternal life. To those who are perishing, the question remains: “What must I do to be saved?” For some they believe you must reach perfection or at least make every honest attempt. For others it is in giving your life completely over to Jesus.
The message of the Cross is simple. Christ has been crucified for the sins of the entire world. Our Lord’s last words from the cross say it best “It is finished” (St. John 19:30).
“Merciful and everlasting God, you did not spare your only Son but delivered Him up for us all that He might bear our sins on the cross. Grant that our hearts may be fixed with steadfast faith in Him that we may not fear the power of any adversary; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.” (Collect for Holy Cross Day)
From Aardvark Alley
During the reign of Constantine the Great, the first Roman Emperor to profess the Christian faith, his mother Helena went to Israel, hoping to find the places especially significant to Christians. Having located, close together, what she believed to be the sites of the Crucifixion and of the Burial (at locations that many modern archaeologists think may be correct), she then had built over them the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, which was dedicated on 13 September 335. On the next day, the purported section of the cross was brought outside the church for others to view. Thus began a day for recognizing the cross of Christ in a festal atmosphere that would be inappropriate on Good Friday. It stands as a symbol of triumph, as a sign of Christ's victory over death, and a reminder of His promise, "And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself. (John 12:32)"
The day is known by different names in various parts of Christendom. The Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Rite Catholic Churches know it as "Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross" while the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church calls it the "Triumph of the Cross." Most other liturgical churches simply call it "Holy Cross Day."
The Christian custom of tracing the sign of the cross on people and things as a sign of blessing is very old. Some think that it goes back to the very origins of Christianity and earlier. In Ezekiel 9, we read that Ezekiel had a vision of the throne-room of God, in which an angel was sent to go through Jerusalem and put a mark on the foreheads of the faithful few who mourned for the sins of the city. Afterwards, other angels were sent through the city to destroy all those who had not the mark.We find similar visionary material in Revelation 7:2-4; 9:4; and 14:1, where the mark on the forehead again protects the faithful few in the day of wrath. There, it is said to be the name of the Lamb and of His Father.
What is the significance of the sign of the cross? In the first place, we often place our initials or other personal mark on something to show that it belongs to us. The cross is the personal mark of Our Lord Jesus Christ, often traced upon our foreheads and hearts at our baptisms. We mark it on ourselves as a sign that we belong to Him, just as in the book of Revelation, as noted above, the servants of God are sealed or marked on their foreheads as a sign that they are His.
As one preacher said, if you were telling someone how to make a cross, you might say, "Draw an 'I' and then cross it out." As we make the sign, we first draw a vertical stroke, as if to say to God, "Lord, here am I." Then we cancel it with a horizontal stroke, as if to say, "Help me, Lord, to abandon my self-centeredness and self-will; make Yourself the center of my life instead. Fix all my attention and all my desire on You, Lord, that I may forget my self, cancel my self, abandon myself completely to Your love and service." ¶ 9/14/2006 03:33:00 PM 0 Comments
