He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.
TO PONDER
Imagine you have been in gaol for a number of years for some crime you committed. During this time, you have lost you home and all your other worldly resources, and your family and friends have deserted you. Then, by some miracle (and I must admit I had trouble thinking up a plausible real life one) you are acquitted and released from gaol. Yes, your criminal record has been wiped, but you now have nowhere to go and no one to pick you up. How do you get your life back together?
If our Christian faith was just about Christ being crucified for our failures to live up to God’s standards, we would be no different to the imaginary story above. Yes, Jesus’s perfectly lived life and His death on the cross have been attributed to us so that we are now sinless and perfectly holy before God. But it doesn’t end with Jesus enabling us to escape eternal death because of our failures, but our Heavenly Father now gives us a new start through a new birth. As Jesus came back to life with a new resurrected human body, that resurrection has also been attributed to us as a free gift.
As brand‑new baby Christians, we need a family to care for us, teach us and train us in how to live this new resurrected life. So God has adopted us into the Heavenly Family consisting of Father, Son and Holy Spirit (along with lots of other adopted children) and given us His Holy Spirit to live in us as our life coach.
God has two main goals for us, to grow us in our relationship with the members of the Heavenly Family, including all the other adopted new‑born Christians, and to share the good news with the people who haven’t yet accepted the invitation to die with Christ and be resurrected into the Heavenly Family.
In this world, although we have died and been resurrected with our brother Jesus, we still haven’t let go of many of the things we thought were treasures in our previous life. So, that part where we are learning to live as members of the Heavenly Family includes learning to let go of these things that get in the way of us fully experiencing the new life. These could be trust in our own abilities, skills and knowledge, they could include our struggles to forgive, they could include our short fuse and how quickly we get frustrated with the failures of others, they could include our difficulty in really trusting God’s promise to always be working for our welfare; the list goes on.
Having paid that awesome price, Jesus is now 100% committed to teaching us how to live our new resurrected life, and nothing is going to distract Him. He is very patient, and He will even let us learn the consequences of not letting go of our old securities and be there to pick us up out of the mess we get ourselves into. Some weeks ago in the Sunday sermon, we looked at Jesus’s advice that forgiving others shouldn’t be limited to a generous seven time, but 77 times. Jesus is even much more compassionate to us with our mess‑ups and there is no limit to the number of times He is prepared to pick us up out of the mess we get ourselves into. So, when we are aware of our failures, we shouldn’t run away to hide from Jesus, but thank Him and surrender ourselves anew into His working in our lives through His gift of Holy Spirit (and definitely not to offer to try harder in the future).
Prayer: Dear Heavenly Brother Jesus, we really struggle to understand a love so strong that it would lead You to let Yourself so cruelly be sacrificed so that we could be rescued from ourselves and be adopted into Your Heavenly Family. Please take away our fear of surrendering ourselves into that love, so that we can learn to live as Your brothers and sisters, especially in sharing this good news with those You bring into our lives. Amen
Today's devotion written by Charles Bertelsmeier, LifeWay Epping
The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay.
TO PONDER
I am no expert on Jewish society in the time of Jesus, but I understand it was a rather male dominated society. For example, the physical mark of membership, circumcision, was only available to males and only men could be religious teachers and leaders. Even Jesus only had male disciples. However, the records of Jesus’s ministry in the gospels are full of stories of Jesus ministering to women and treating them with love and respect. There were even a number of women in the group who followed Jesus around the countryside (Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Susanna among others - Luke 8:2‑3).
Letting my (admittedly male) imagination run wild, I wonder what these women saw in Jesus and what they imagined their future with Him would be like. Here was someone who loved them, honoured them and treated them with respect. If this was all that their future offered them, they would be exceedingly happy, and wouldn’t want it to end.
Then Jesus gets Himself executed by the Romens, and their vision of the future with Him is shattered. The best they can do is honour Him by anointing his body with embalming spices. And after that, then what?
The good news is that this is not the end of something wonderful, but the beginning of something even more wonderful. God has plans for these women. They may have been present with the disciples at post‑resurrection meetings with Jesus and most certainly at Pentecost. They would have witnessed Holy Spirit at work powerfully in the early church, even possibly through themselves. (We do have to be a bit careful with our imagination, since these women don’t get mentioned again in the Acts of the Apostles or the letters written by Paul and others in the New Testament, but we can be quite certain by the way they are honoured in the Gospels that they continued to be involved in the early church for the remainder of their lives.)
When it comes to facing new directions, we at LifeWay may be facing new directions that God may be leading us. Over the last decade, we may have believed that we had a quite clear view of our direction as God led us into supporting congregations in other locations and incorporating them into the LifeWay umbrella. Now we may be being led by a God in a slightly different direction and we might be finding this unsettling. God wants us to grow in trusting Him and trusting that He knows what He is doing. Pastor Mark Schultz had a wonderful prayer, “God, prepare our hearts for what you have for us next and give us a heart of faith to go where you call us to go. Amen.” May that be our prayer too as we surrender our agendas and dreams to our loving Heavenly Father and prayerfully spend time with our God to see how He wants to use us in bringing the good news of His healing love to those who don’t yet know Him.
Prayer: Heavenly Father, thank You for being in control of the whole universe and also of the life of the members of Your church. We ask for Your peace in our hearts as You continue to lead us as a community in Living Jesus' love, Sharing His hope with all and Growing in grace together. Amen
Today's devotion written by Charles Bertelsmeier, LifeWay Epping
The next day, on the Sabbath, the leading priests and Pharisees went to see Pilate. They told him, “Sir, we remember what that deceiver once said while he was still alive: ‘After three days I will rise from the dead.’ So we request that you seal the tomb until the third day. This will prevent his disciples from coming and stealing his body and then telling everyone he was raised from the dead! If that happens, we’ll be worse off than we were at first.”
Pilate replied, “Take guards and secure it the best you can.” So they sealed the tomb and posted guards to protect it.
TO PONDER
This little snippet of the story is something specific to Matthew's account. Every gospel talks about the stone and the cards placed at the tomb, but only Matthew goes into the details behind the arrangement. I love this because it directly addresses on of the common objections people make in their attempts to deny the resurrection of Jesus.
The argument goes like this, "the tomb was empty on Easter Sunday because Jesus' followers stole the body sometime in the night."
Here we see that this particular possibility was thoroughly guarded against. "Take some Roman soldiers and make the tomb as secure as you know how" were Pilates instruction o the priests and Pharisees. I have no doubt that the Jewish leaders would have done everything that was within their power to do to make sure Jesus body stayed put in the tomb. I also have no doubt that the, "scattered like sheep" rag tag team of fishermen, tax collectors and assorted other former professions would have had no conceivable way to overpower the guards posted at the tomb of Jesus.
What strikes me as even more interesting is that the priests and Pharisees were concerned that what Jesus said might come true. They did not believe he would actually rise from the dead, but even the perception that he may have risen, just as he said, was a threat they felt they had to manage. I think what we see here is an example of an attitude that still exists within many human cultures and societies today. People's objections and reactions to the possibility of Jesus actually rising from dead come from a deep, and often subconscious realisation that if it is true - everything changes. If Jesus did rise from the dead then we cannot just dismiss him as a good person or moral teacher and choose to ignore him whenever we find him inconvenient.
Take a look around you today. For most people, today is simply the day to go to the shops while they are open - the one day of the Easter weekend that is not an inconvenient disruption of regular daily life. It's the day we don't have to be reminded of Jesus death because the shops are open and it's not the day we have to deal with sugar induced hyperactive children who have been given way too much chocolate. For many people today is the day we can rest because we don't have to face what Jesus death actually means.
Today I want to encourage you not to let that be how you approach today. If fact, I want to suggest that today we all spend time reflecting on what the reality of Jesus death and crucifixion means for every day, so that when Easter celebrations are behind us, we do not simply go back to life as usual and dismiss Jesus as just a long dead relic of the past, but that we live each day - even this one - knowing that Jesus is alive and that this simple fact makes all the difference in the world.
PRAYER: Lord Jesus - for so many people the celebration of Easter is a threatening prospect. So many people still don't recognise you as their Lord and Saviour; so many people view the possibility of your death and resurrection as a threat to their way of life. I thank you that you have shown me the truth - that you alone are the way of Life. Today I pray that you would help me to live each day in a way that the reality of your resurrection is undeniable and that those who still consider you a threat might come to know the life that can only be found in you. Amen
Today's devotion written by Mathew von Stanke, LifeWay Newcastle.
Then they sang a hymn and went out to the Mount of Olives.
On the way, Jesus told them, “Tonight all of you will desert me. For the Scriptures say, ‘God will strike the Shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’ But after I have been raised from the dead, I will go ahead of you to Galilee and meet you there.”
TO PONDER
Good Friday (or not so Good Friday - depending on how you want to look at it) is often a day of solemnity and reflection, sorrow and mourning, and so it should be. The self sacrificing death of the God of creation for our sake and salvation is something worthy of deep reflection and consideration.
However, in some of Jesus last words to his disciples just prior to his arrest, Jesus is already telling them of the hope that is to come. He has told them so many times already that he would be betrayed, killed and then raised from the dead, but most of them have still not understood.
Here in the 21st Century, some two thousand years after the crucifixion of Jesus we have the benefit if hindsight. We have the first hand accounts of some of those who witnessed these things for themselves. As God's people, we have the benefit of two thousand years worth of faithful and dedicated meditation and reflection of those who have gone before us in the faith about what the death and resurrection of Jesus means for us.
But imagine the disciples as they heard Jesus words to them. They may have seen Jesus raise others from the dead, but no one had ever raised themselves from the dead before. They knew Jesus was different and often didn't meet people's expectations - but could God's promised Messiah actually have come for such a short time only to be killed by the Romans - the very people many thought Jesus had come to liberate them from? When you think about it, it's not so hard to understand why the disciples maybe didn't get it.
But here's the thing - Jesus didn't need them to 'get it' before going through with the Father's plan. Even more amazingly, in the face of his impending suffering and crucifixion, Jesus appears concerned that he provide some kind of hope for the disciples. To tell them that even though the day ahead will cause them to fear for their lives, run for the hills, and desert him, he will not abandon them. In three days he will see them again in Galilee as he had so many times before.
So, this Good Friday, take some time - as so many Christians before you have done - to reflect on the significance of the death of God on a cross for you. But do so with the knowledge and understanding that Jesus left for his disciples and for us. His death is not the end, it's just the path he took so that he could go ahead of us that we might meet him and be where he is for all eternity.
PRAYER: Lord Jesus, there really are no words to express the depth of my gratitude for your sacrifice on the cross for my sake. Despite my best efforts, I cannot imagine the torment and anguish you experienced so that I would never have to know the pain of being eternally separated from you. Please help me to remember that no matter how tough life may become, I can have the confidence that you are with me making a way for me to be with you both on the other side of my challenges but also in the midst of them. Amen
Today's devotion written by Mathew von Stanke, LifeWay Newcastle
When it was evening, Jesus sat down at the table with the Twelve. While they were eating, he said, “I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me.”
Greatly distressed, each one asked in turn, “Am I the one, Lord?” He replied, “One of you who has just eaten from this bowl with me will betray me."
TO PONDER
While we all know the story and we know who betrayed Jesus, Maundy Thursday (the Thursday of Holy Week) is one of my favourite parts of the Easter week.
On Thursday night, Jesus celebrated the Passover meal with his disciples. During the meal, Jesus deviated from the usual script and instituted a new meal of promise and remembering - the Lord's Supper - a meal which most Christians around the world celebrate in one way or another. At that meal he offered himself, his body and blood for the forgiveness of sins, knowing full well that the one who would betray him and hand him over for execution was sitting there with him.
That is often a great comfort to me, especially when I realise I have messed up in some way. To know that Jesus gave himself for Judas - only moments before his betrayal - gives me confidence that those same words "given and shed for you" also still apply to me, no matter how badly I may have messed up.
If you are planning to make it to a Maundy Thursday service this evening, you will hear those words spoken to you as you receive Holy Communion. Maybe you won't hear them again until Easter Sunday or even sometime later when you next make it to church. No matter, Whenever you next find yourself at the Lord's table, about to receive Holy Communion, listen carefully as those words are spoken. Hear Jesus saying them to you because o matter how badly your life has been messed up, no matter how big your mistakes have been, no matter what wrong or evil has been committed against you - Jesus knows your heart, he knows your hurt and your shame, and he chooses to give himself for you anyway.
PRAYER: Thank you Jesus, that you include people like Judas - people like me - in your promises of mercy and forgiveness. Please help me to remember that in your death and resurrection which was once and for all, there is still a personal promise to me - that in you I have life and life in abundance and fulness. Amen
Today's devotion written by Mathew von Stanke, LifeWay Newcastle
Then one of the Twelve—the one called Judas Iscariot—went to the chief priests and asked, “What are you willing to give me if I deliver him over to you?” So they counted out for him thirty pieces of silver. From then on Judas watched for an opportunity to hand him over.
TO PONDER
So today is Wednesday of Holy Week. It's a bit difficult to pinpoint exactly when Judas makes up his mind to hand Jesus over to the Sanhedrin (the Jewish religious council that ruled the temple in Jerusalem), but by Matthew's account, either some time on Tuesday or Wednesday seem likely.
It's easy for us to sit back and label Judas the 'bad guy' in the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus, and not without good reason; but today I want to encourage us all to look a little deeper and imagine ourselves in the story.
If you read the earlier parts of Matthew 26, you will see Jesus doing some things that Judas really disagrees with; particularly when it comes to letting the woman anoint Jesus' feet with the expensive perfume. Judas, as keeper of the purse for Jesus and his disciples, saw the act as a waste of financial resources - something that could have provided significant financial aid to Jesus' ministry or alternatively for the poor - who Jesus had been encouraging people to care for in his recent teaching.
Judas only saw part of the picture. He missed the fact that Jesus had been saying for weeks that his time was coming, that his earthly ministry was coming to an end. Judas simply had failed to understand the bigger piucture and so he took matters into his own hands to make things go the way he thought they needed to go. I'm sure he never expected tat Jesus would let himself be taken to the cross and killed - I'm sure that he fully expected Jesus to 'save himself' as so many people at the cross called out for Jesus to do. All Judas probably thought he was doing was giving things a nudge in the right direction.
How often do we do the same thing? We pray and ask God to help us with things in life, but then when his answer disappoints us or comes in a different form than we expected, we just take matters into our own hands. We might well say, "yeah, but my doing that doesn't result in someone being killed." However, that's exactly the point - our impatience, our desire to take control and not trust the way God works things out is exactly what led Jesus to the cross.
PRAYER: Lord Jesus, please help me to remember that while I may not have been in the garden while you prayed, or been with Peter in the courtyard while you stood trial, that it is still my selfishness and sin that nailed you to the cross. Please help me not to judge the sin and wrongdoing I see in others as any worse or different than the sin in my own heart. Thank you that you went to the cross for me. Amen
Today's devotion written by Mathew von Stanke, LifeWay Newcastle
When Jesus had finished saying all these things, he said to his disciples, “As you know, the Passover is two days away—and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.”
Then the chief priests and the elders of the people assembled in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas, and they schemed to arrest Jesus secretly and kill him. “But not during the festival,” they said, “or there may be a riot among the people.”
TO PONDER
Two days out from the celebration of Passover. Jesus knew what was coming.
Two days out from the celebration of Passover and the chief priest and religious leaders of the Jewish people thought they knew what was coming.
They thought they had the situation under control. They thought, "if we wait until after the passover festival, some of the pilgrims will leave town and we can take care of the Jesus problem then."
The think I often reflect on at this point of Holy Week is that even though we look back and see these people and the Roman authorities as the 'bad guys' the ones who actually killed Jesus, they are also enacting and carrying out God's intended plan. Without Jesus death, there is no justification and no resurrection. We look back and think how could they have been so blind, how could they have let an innocent man suffer and die like that. It doesn't always make sense to us why something so terrible had to happen for God to bring about the salvation of all humanity.
That kind of thinking does help me to some extent when I see the violence and corruption that is evident in the world today. I'm not for a moment suggesting that God is responsible for it, but I can remember Jesus and trust that even though I may not be able to make sense or know how God is working things out through this mess, I can be confident that he is. If he can bring forgiveness and life out of suffering and death, he can make something good out of even the situation the world finds itself in today.
Today, I encourage you to remember that God is able to do far more than we could hope or imagine. Put your trust in him and follow where he leads. It might be hard, it might be painful even. It may not make sense and you may never understand the good God has brought about through it. However you can be sure that He will not leave or forsake you and because of his resurrection you can be sure that with Christ, all things are possible, even things you could not even begin to hope for or imagine.
PRAYER:Lord Jesus, sometimes it is hard to see how anything good can come out of such terrible circumstances. I suspect that sometimes in my efforts to avoid the things I see coming my way, I probably make things even worse. But I thank you that in your death and resurrection, I can see that you can make the worst mistakes into things that bring life and salvation. Lord help me to follow you more closely and avoid making mistakes, but even more, I thank you for the way you redeem even my mistakes and turn them into something new. Amen
Today's devotion written by Mathew von Stanke, LifeWay Newcastle.
As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away.”
This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet:
“Say to Daughter Zion, ‘See, your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’”
TO PONDER
Our theme this Holy Week is "Jesus is...". We know that Jesus is not only a king but the King of Kings. Today I want to focus on something different, something that is easy to miss if you don't look carefully. Today I want us to remember that Jesus was God's plan from the beginning.
We hear in today's reading how Jesus sent his disciples to go and fetch him a donkey so that prophecy could be fulfilled. For centuries prior to Jesus' birth, God's prophets to the nation and people of Israel had been dropping hints about what God was planning and how they would recognise God's Messiah when he arrived. In fact, you even see the first signs of God's plan right back in the Garden of Eden when he pronounces judgement over the serpent who convinced Eve and Adam to eat the forbidden fruit, when God says, "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head and you will strike his heel." (Genesis 3:15)
Sometimes it is easy to lose sight of the fact that Jesus is not God's backup plan, that somehow God hoped that Adam and Eve would get it right and that Jesus would not need to die in our place, but God knew. What's perhaps most crazy about that is even knowing what would happen, God went about and did it all anyway because he had a plan in place from the beginning. He new it would take his life in our place to put things right and in his great love for us he went ahead knowing full well what it would cost him to have us as his own.
Jesus is not a backup plan or an after thought - Jesus was always the fulfilment of all God's promises and plans for creation. What could there possibly be that's more worthy of our thought and reflection today than that?!
PRAYER: Heavenly Father, It is difficult, if not impossible, to comprehend the depth of your love for me. But I thank you that in Jesus you have done everything necessary for me to spend my whole life getting to know more of your love each day. Please make me bold in sharing that love with others so they too, may know the joy of the love of their Heavenly Father. Amen
Today's devotion written by Mathew von Stanke, LifeWay Newcastle
The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David!”
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
TO PONDER
While I'm not usually a fan of reality television, there has been one kind of reality/documentary show that seems to be popping up increasingly on various streaming services. They are shows that document or interview people who have escaped life in various cults. I find the psychology behind these kinds of groups fascinating. What strikes me in almost every interview with a person who has managed to find their way clear of the cult they were in is this; they all share how easy it is to fall prey to the belief systems of those around you. We might call it the 'mob mentality'.
Something similar was happening on that first Palm Sunday as Jesus entered Jerusalem. Most of the Jews in the crowd knew Jesus was a saviour but they didn't;t know what he had actually come to save them from. They had been told for so long that one day a Messiah would come from the line of King David to 'free' God's people and establish an everlasting kingdom. For centuries, that promise had been understood as a military and political saviour who would kick out the Romans and establish an everlasting kingdom of Israel. This is what the crowd wanted, this is what they expected.
Less than a week later, those same crowds had changed their opinion of Jesus because they did not see him doing what they expected. Instead of shouting Hosanna, which means "save us", they were shouting "crucify him". Even his closest friends and followers didn't;t completely understand and those who had promised never to leave Jesus side, found themselves denying they even knew Jesus.
Palm Sunday is a good way to start the journey through Holy Week. It's a chance to stop and reflect on what you expect from Jesus and to reflect on whether your expectations really align with what Jesus told his disciples that he had come to do. Are you letting the Word of God tell you who Jesus is and what he has done or are you listening to the crowds all around you, those who think they have all the answers, but only see the part of the picture they want to see?
PRAYER:Lord Jesus, Thank you that you came to seek and save the lost, of whom I am certainly one. Please help me to keep my eyes, ears and heart open this week as I reflect on the story of your death and resurrection. Help me to see more clearly and completely everything you have done for me through your sacrifice on the cross. Amen
Today's devotion written by Mathew von Stanke, LifeWay Newcastle