Reformed. Christianity. Evangelism. Modern Culture.
It’s about two thousand years since Pilate said, “Ecce homo” (behold the man). How easily we forget that God was among us (Emmanuel). How easily we forget that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
How easily we let our focus shift to material give aways and easter eggs. What if we beheld the crucifixion of Jesus and remembered that:
Death by crucifixion was agonizingly slow, and came about by suffocation. A medical expert on crucifixion describes the physical effects that Jesus would have endured while nailed to a cross,
“As the arms fatigue, great waves of cramps sweep over the muscles . . . With these cramps comes the inability to push Himself upward. Hanging by His arms, the pectoral muscles are paralyzed . . . Air can be drawn into the lungs, but cannot be exhaled. Jesus fights to raise Himself in order to get even one short breath. Finally, carbon dioxide builds up in the lungs and in the blood stream and the cramps partially subside. Spasmodically He is able to push Himself upward to exhale and bring in the life-giving oxygen.” (The Crucifixion of Jesus: The Passion of Christ from a Medical Point of View, Arizona Medicine, vol. 22, no. 3 (March 1965), 183-187).
This process would continue for hours until all strength in the legs is gone, and Jesus is no longer able to push up in order to breathe.
Aside from the physical pain of crucifixion, there was also the stigma of disgrace and humiliation that was attached to it. Victims were beaten, whipped, and taunted even before reaching the cross. They were usually hanged naked, made a spectacle of shame for all to see. Read More…
On a lighter note this is why Christians are excited about Easter….
HT Jim West via FB.
On a lighter note:
Loosely translated:
Dude? If it wasn’t you then who said “Good Morning”?
HT Jim West.
The death, burial and resurrection of Christ and the Easter message was well summed by the Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon:
He suffered all the horror of hell; in one pelting shower of iron wrath it fell upon him, with hail-stones bigger than a talent; and he stood until the black cloud had emptied itself completely. There was our debt, huge and immense; he paid the utmost farthing of whatever his people owed; and now there is not so much as a doit or a
farthing due to the justice of God in the way of punishment from any believer; and though we owe God gratitude, though we owe much to his love, we owe nothing to his justice; for Christ in that hour took all our sins, past, present, and to come, and was punished for them all there and then, that we might never be punished, because he suffered in our stead. ~ Charles Spurgeon
Paiye of the primitive Moi tribe of West Papua tells the Easter or Resurrection story in his own words. It is said that there are only 700-800 Moi in existence. The Moi have a language and culture completely their own.
Hmm. Good to see no one has introduced the Easter bunny plus all the commercialism that goes with Easter and most Christian festivities. Pray for missionaries – pray that they remain faithful to the message of the gospel. 
Many times we hear some one say, “God loves you unconditionally” or “God loves you no matter what you do”. This usually may reflect a relative theological naievity in the speaker. It most times shows that the person doesn’t know what the lifeless bloodied body of God on the cross signified. It also makes the hearers take home a false notion that God doesn’t really care much about sin and you can live your reckless life without any care. But then….
If there ever was an obscenity that violates contemporary community standards, it was Jesus on the cross. After he became the scapegoat and the Father had imputed to him every sin of every one of his people, the most intense, dense concentration of evil ever experienced on this planet was exhibited. Jesus was the ultimate obscenity.
So what happened? God is too holy to look at sin. He could not bear to look at that concentrated monumental condensation of evil, so he averted …Read More!
“Give me yourself, O my God, give yourself back to me. Lo, I love you, but if my love is too mean, let me love more passionately. I cannot gauge my love, nor know how far it fails, how much more love I need for my life to set its course straight into your arms, never swerving until hidden in the covert of your face. This alone I know, that without you all to me is misery, woe outside myself and woe within, and all wealth but penury, if it is not my God.” ~St. Augustine of Hippo
[This post was first published in April 2012 but the lesson still stands] How I wish we still had Easter services that focus on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Very soon we will have a generation attending church week in and week out that will be the perfect example of a Christless Christianity. It is Easter again and the usual brouhaha is going around…
As many churches celebrate Easter with special church services and egg hunts including candy, one North Carolina church will be giving away an Apple iPad, Xbox 360 and two iPod shuffles.
The Shelby campus of Element Church, a recently established congregation of Cleveland County, will be holding a 12,000-egg hunt event at the Keeter stadium of Shelby High School.
Skipper Allen, campus pastor at Element Church, told The Christian Post that the Shelby campus would be doing this along with their other campus in Forest City.
“We have done an egg drop event at our Forest City campus for years now. This year we decided that we would continue doing it in Forest City, and in order to gain more momentum for our Shelby campus we decided to do the exact same service at the same time,” said Allen.
“The Forest City service will be at McNair Stadium which is the home of the Forest City Owls baseball team. The Shelby service will be at Hoyt S. Keeter stadium which is the home of the American Legion World Series.”
“There will be an invitation given so that people have a chance to respond to the Gospel, and after all of that then we will have the egg hunt portion of the event,” said Allen.
A helicopter will drop thousands of eggs, nearly all of which will be filled with candy save four of them which will have markings that make them redeemable for one of the more technological prizes. …Read More!
I thought this was interesting:
HT Friends on FB.
You would think as Easter approaches people would spend more time reading their bibles and focusing on Christ’s death for sinners. No, some pastors are into more hip and trendy (actually goofy) ideas…
In a hip, artsy, area of Houston, a hip, artsy pastor is taking an unorthodox approach to Lent.
Standing in front of his congregation at Ecclesia Church, a congregation he admits is different – more diverse, more urban – than many evangelical churches – Chris Seay encouraged them to do so something he said combines the ideas of sacrifice and devotion that mark the Lenten season, the 40-day lead up to Easter.
He asked them to get tattoos. Specifically, he asked congregants to get a tattoo corresponding with one of the Stations of the Cross, the collection of images that depict scenes in Jesus’ journey to his crucifixion.
“The tendency we have as Christians is to skip past Jesus’ suffering,” Seay said in an interview. “Not only do tattoos come with a bit of suffering, they are also an art form that has not fully been embraced.” …Read More!
Well it’s that time of the year again. Lent, and one interesting gentle man has been chronicling photographs of people during Lent…
Greg Miller is not confused by the smudged foreheads he sees on the streets this time of year. In fact, he waits all year to see them.
The photographer works at a snail’s pace in general. This project, for example, has been 15 years in the making — though it has amounted to more like 15 cumulative days. He waits all year for Ash Wednesday. And even after a whole day’s work, he walks away with only a few frames, because he is lugging around a large-format film camera. This clearly is not about instant gratification…
For Christians, Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent, and the tradition of putting ash crosses on the forehead is meant to symbolize the beginning of a penitential season, a reminder of mortality. …Read More!
This is an excerpt from Spurgeon’s daily devotional:
“I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint.”- Psa_22:14
Did earth or heaven ever behold a sadder spectacle of woe! In soul and body, our Lord felt himself to be weak as water poured upon the ground. The placing of the cross in its socket had shaken him with great violence, had strained all the ligaments, pained every nerve, and more or less dislocated all his bones. Burdened with his own weight, the august sufferer felt the strain increasing every moment of those six long hours. His sense of faintness and general weakness were overpowering; while to his own consciousness he became nothing but a mass of misery and swooning sickness. When Daniel saw the great vision, he thus describes his sensations, “There remained no strength in me, for my vigour was turned into corruption, and I retained no strength:” how much more faint must have been our greater Prophet when he saw the dread vision of the wrath of God, and felt it in his own soul! …Read More
Pastor Bil Cornelius
This is an archive article from 2010 by Denise Mala.
Bay Area Fellowship, the largest church in Corpus Christi, gives away flat-screen televisions, skateboards, Fender guitars, furniture and 15 cars — yes, cars — at its Easter services.
And even those who don’t win big walk away with something. The church gathers donations for 15,000 gift bags, each with about $300 worth of free goods and services.
“We’re going to give some stuff away and say, ‘Imagine how great heaven is going to be if you feel that excited about a car,’ ” lead Pastor Bil Cornelius said. “It’s completely free — all you have to do is receive him.”
He hopes the prizes will help Bay Area lure some people Read More
Pastor Bil Cornelius
By Denise Mala, Full article Here.
Bay Area Fellowship, the largest church in Corpus Christi, is giving away flat-screen televisions, skateboards, Fender guitars, furniture and 15 cars — yes, cars — at its Easter services.
And even those who don’t win big will walk away with something. The church has gathered donations for 15,000 gift bags, each with about $300 worth of free goods and services.
“We’re going to give some stuff away and say, ‘Imagine how great heaven is going to be if you feel that excited about a car,’ ” lead Pastor Bil Cornelius said. “It’s completely free — all you have to do is receive him.”
He hopes the prizes will help Bay Area lure some people Read More
By Museum of Idolatry.
The wildly popular yet wholesome Jonas Brothers will perform for Saddleback Church next month during the Southern California megachurch’s Easter service.
Saddleback senior pastor Rick Warren announced the pop rock boy band’s upcoming performance this week in a tweet two months before his church kicks off a flurry of activities.
This year, Saddleback’s Easter service will be unlike any of its previous ones, and not just because the Jonas Brothers will be there along with Christian music artist Kari Jobe. Read More
By Museum of Idolatry.
[pullquote][Please note: This is an archived article from early 2010][/pullquote]The wildly popular yet wholesome Jonas Brothers will perform for Saddleback Church next month during the Southern California megachurch’s Easter service.
Saddleback senior pastor Rick Warren announced the pop rock boy band’s upcoming performance this week in a tweet two months before his church kicks off a flurry of activities.
This year, Saddleback’s Easter service will be unlike any of its previous ones, and not just because the Jonas Brothers will be there along with Christian music artist Kari Jobe. Read More
A Twisted Crown of Thorns ® 