Tag Archives: Easter

Posted on

Step into the Easter Story as Foretold by Isaiah and Fulfilled in the Four Gospels

Jesus set his face like a flint for Jerusalem. His hour had come. Almost 700 years before, the prophet Isaiah described what would unfold in surprising detail, and what it would mean for all humankind. I invite you to read Isaiah’s version (before Sunday) that focuses more on the physical, emotional and spiritual suffering of Jesus and the reasons why God was willing to “crush” his Son. Let it take you deeper into the arrest, trial and crucifixion of “the greatest story ever told.” And worship the One who loves us and sacrificed himself for us. 

All the texts are taken from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version except for my comments in italics.

 ***Isaiah 53:1-3 Betrayal, abandonment, denial, rejection***

Giotto: Jesus betrayed by Judas, Scrovegni Chapel, Padua, Italy; @1305

Isaiah: Who has believed what they heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?…He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 

Matthew: And [in the garden of Gethsemane, Judas] came up to Jesus at once and said, “Greetings, Rabbi!” And he kissed him. Jesus said to him, “Friend, do what you came to do.” (26:49)

Then all the disciples left him and fled. (26:56)

Posted on

What do we see at the foot of the cross?

The pain Jesus suffered went far beyond the flogging, nails and suffocation

Storyblocks

Stand with me at the foot of the cross. Come close. So close that when we look up, all we can see is that face. The arms outstretched, the hands barely visible in our peripheral vision.

What do we see?

If you saw Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, you no doubt took away indelible images of the physical pain and agony of Jesus’ death on a Roman cross. In our imaginations we see the nails and the stretching, hanging, and suffocating, and we are astonished that anyone would willingly give up a throne to submit to such excruciating torture.

On the day he died, Jesus endured so much physical pain; yet the Scriptures say he didn’t open his mouth. Like a lamb going to the slaughter, he endured silently the scourging, mocking, spitting, slapping, nailing, the struggle to breathe.

But at the crucial juncture, Gibson’s movie could not show us, nor can we even imagine the greater pain of being cursed—being totally removed from the presence of God. Around noon something beyond all imagination began to happen.

The world went dark, and Christ became sin. 

Posted on

“That which we have seen…and touched…”

Eye witness of an empty tomb

John’s mind raced. Mary’s words, tumbling and breathless, had shattered the pictures of pain that enveloped him. “An empty tomb…no guards in sight…” Peter’s footsteps fell farther behind.  He couldn’t hold up or slow down. He wiped his nose with his hand, his eyes with his sleeve.

His mind grasped at dangling threads of past conversations–“must suffer,” “three days”–and traced them into tangles of things to come. He picked at the tangles but could not unravel them. Around him the world moved in slow motion…yawning…stretching…stirring coals to life. Blinking faces started at the speed and intensity of the figure sprinting past.

From the hedge at the garden gate a rustle of wings took to flight. The path dipped down through the rows of grapevines, past the wine press. Around a final corner, the tomb, bathed in rosy light, matched Mary’s picture exactly. No stone. No guards.

Posted on

The Post-Easter Challenge: What do we do now?

My publisher, Crossway Books, has given me a beautiful book of the Masonite drawings by Robert Doares picturing the life of Christ, Immanuel, God with Us. The originals hung in the Billy Graham Center Museum at Wheaton College, wide-angle compositions and sweeping vistas fifteen inches high and four feet across.

Doares Great Comission

Before and after Easter, I lay the book out on my entry hall table, turning a page each day and letting the pictures take my imagination across two millennia, back to Jerusalem and Galilee.

In one of the final double-spread pictures, several paths converge on the top of a small mountain in Galilee. From the artist’s helicopter view, a lofty cloudbank rises toward the northwest where the gospel would spread (too wide to be included in this picture).

A small robed figure thrusts one arm toward those distant lands, directing the gaze of eleven men seated in a half circle before him. The Scripture underneath the picture is Christ’s commission to go out and invite others to follow him (Matt. 28:19-20).

As I walked by the table yesterday, I looked at that tiny group sitting in the curve of a path across a broad stony terrace in the sweeping landscape. The sheer measure of Jesus’ invitation stopped me cold. Eleven men are invited to change…everything?

All those miles and miles and city after city? How do you imagine a church? How you imagine missions? How do you take what Christ said and did and roll it out to a world that has never heard of Jesus of Nazareth, or the God of Abraham, or a church?