"In our end is our beginning;
in our time, infinity;
in our doubt there is believing;
in our life, eternity.
In our death, a resurrection;
at the last, a victory,
unrevealed until its season,
something God alone can see."
Praise the Lord for this stunning Spring season in which
the Lord of Creation and redemption decorates the earth with full splendor and
majesty. We are the recipients of His unending love and all
surpassing beauty. The Lord has blessed us with some friendly rains that
are causing the spring flowers to bloom and the birds to sing. Alice
and I walked the other other day when Sun was shining brilliantly, warming
hearts and the earth. The Spring birds were out in droves, forming
orchestras and choirs, producing amazing music and offering evening songs to
the Lord. I love to hears the songs and the melodies of the mourning
doves. They sing during the mornings and evenings. I have
heard the mourning doves in many parts of the world, particularly in the area
of India where I was born and raised. So, whenever and wherever I hear
the mourning doves I get stirred and provoked with music and melodies in my
heart.
Praise
the Lord for this season of spring and of Easter, the season of hope
and promise. Trout season has opened here in New York. The
Fishermen are our in anticipation, hope, and patience. The local farmers,
who are a breed apart, are gearing up for another season of plowing and
planting. Farm tractors and trucks are out on the roads in full operation.
This
coming Sunday is Palm Sunday, which will inaugurate the Holy Week, moving
through to Good Friday, and culminating in the Victorious Resurrection
Sunday. Let us take time and make time for reflection, study and prayer,
worship and witness. Let us pray for the world that needs Jesus, pray for
others and one another, and pray for the Church. May the Lord of the
Church anoint the Church afresh and anew to be the harbinger of Good News,
of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus our Lord
The
cross of Christ is what life is all about. What Jesus did on that Friday
afternoon is the most important act anyone ever did. Some time ago I read
about the death of Socrates. As sundown approached, Socrates had
to drink the hemlock. The beloved sage of the Athenians had been
condemned by the officials for corrupting the minds of youth with new
ideas. Meanwhile friends dropped by, and Socrates led a discussion about
the nature of the soul. He then spun an elaborate myth about the shape of
the earth. As the sun sank below the horizon, in a touching scene
described by Plato, Socrates sayid, "I think it better that I have [a
bath] to save the women the trouble of washing the corpse." So he bathed,
drank the poison, and scolded his friends for weeping.
Then Socrates laid down and continued teaching as the numbness worked its way up his legs and finally to his heart, and the great man slipped away in what can only be described as a noble—perhaps beautiful—death.
By all accounts, crucifixion was the most hideous means of dying ever devised by humans. One fact says it all: No one who ever saw a crucifixion ever drew a picture of Jesus on a cross. Rembrandt never saw a crucifixion, and no one who did see one ever could bring him or herself to draw Jesus on a cross—so says historian Thomas Cahill. That means if you visit Rome today and take the tour down into the catacombs where Christians were hiding in the first century, when people were being crucified, on the walls you would see a lot of art. There are sketches of Jesus and Mary, Jesus the Good Shepherd, Jesus healing people.
The first known discovery of a small drawing of Jesus on the cross wasn't made until the fifth century, in the basilica of Santa Sabina, 100 years after the Romans stopped crucifying people. As Thomas Cahill said, and I reiterate, no one who actually saw a crucifixion could portray Jesus on a cross. That old rugged cross that is so ugly that at times the church has sought an alternative. It's the rugged cross we discover in the Apostle's Creed: "I believe in God the Father almighty…and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried…"
In the Christian life, we go from born to suffered, from Christmas to Calvary. Jesus came to die—to be born of the Virgin Mary, suffer under Pontius Pilate, and be crucified, dead and buried. In fact, more than 50 percent of the written gospels cover only the one last week of Jesus' life. On the other hand, the old rugged cross offends us with all it says about our lostness, our blindness. It says we were so hopelessly far gone that God had to resort to something unspeakably reprehensible to save us—the death of His Son on an instrument of torture. This rugged cross tells me that what is wrong with me is so intractable that it takes a staggering supernatural mystery to save me. That rugged cross brings bitter and unwelcome self-knowledge.
I once read an autobiography of a famous preacher in which he told of an incident between him and his wife. They were having an argument as he was dashing for the airport to catch a plane for a big speaking engagement. As he was leaving and they were going at each other, she said, "You're not doing this out of love for God." This famous preacher said, "Well, if you're so smart, you tell me why I do what I do." She said, "Because you are vain, selfish, arrogant and egotistical."
He slammed the door, went to the airport and got on the plane. On his way to Denver, this man broke down and wept. When he got to Denver, he called his wife and said, "Elizabeth, you're right." Under God's eyes, or those of a spouse, we discover who we really are. Because we're so messed up, we need the messy cross.
Many of us remember the crash that occurred on August 16, 1987. Northwest Airlines flight 225 crashed just after taking off from the Detroit airport, killing 155 people. There was only one survivor, a 4-year-old from Tempe, Arizona, named Cecelia. News reports said that when rescuers found Cecelia, they did not believe she had been on the plane. When investigators found her alive, they first assumed she had to have been in one of the cars the plane crashed into on the highway. Yet when the flight manifest was checked, there was Cecelia's name. She survived because even as the plane was falling, Cecelia's mother, Paula Chican, unbuckled her own seat belt, got down on her knees in front of her daughter, wrapped her arms and body around Cecelia, and would not let her go.
Nothing could separate that child from her mother's love—neither tragedy nor disaster, neither the fall nor the flames that followed, neither height nor depth, neither life nor death. Like that child caught in the middle of the disaster, so we have been trapped by our own sin, spiraling down to an inevitable doom; but our God loved us so much that He left heaven, met us on our level, and covered us with the sacrifice of His own body so we might be saved from the consequences of the fall.
In Christ,
Brown
https://youtu.be/fEOLUnoQdmQ
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