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Showing posts with the label cross

Easter for Real

I was pulling into my driveway, just returning from a last minute shopping trip. I still didn’t have all the ingredients I needed to make a broccoli salad for Easter dinner and I had picked up some Puffs, decongestant and Vitamin Water to treat my nasty cold. It occurred to me, in bailing on most of my plans to go into a Benadryl-induced coma, I wasn’t going to have time to buy an Easter outfit or got a haircut before Sunday morning. I felt like such a loser. What kind of Easter was this going to be, anyway? I hadn’t made time to color eggs or buy Easter outfits for my kids prior to our Spring break trip. I hadn’t participated with Lent, Maundy Thursday, or Good Friday services. Our choir cantata was taking place the next weekend, since part of the choir was gone on vacations as well. The color of my nose would suggest celebrating another holiday as a certain reindeer. My kids weren’t even going to be home until the wee hours of the morning. Just another Sunday, I guess. As I...

Good Friday

A lot of people don’t know why today is called “Good Friday.” After all, a man died a horrible, gruesome death. What’s so good about that? “Good” doesn’t seem adequate to describe the magnitude of the act demonstrated on the cross. One God/man took on the entire pandemic of sin, from Adam until the end of time, upon his shoulders. He accepted the penalty of death in the most humiliating and painful way possible. Such powerful act should be described as “great,” “wonderful,” or “awesome,” not merely “good.” Jesus’ act was good, though, in a purely moral sense. He took the punishment we deserved upon Himself. He laid down His life so we might have eternal life. It’s hard to think about the suffering He had to endure for me to be saved from my sins. I wasn’t even able to watch “The Passion” for two years after it was released, because it was hard to conceive that level of commitment under those circumstances. The song, “Feel the Nails” by Ray Boltz haunts me especially this time o...