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Showing posts from March, 2019

EASTER MAKES THINGS LESS CERTAIN

To get maximum benefit from this post, you will want to do the following: Think about a time when something you thought to be one-hundred percent true was cast into doubt - a time when something of which you were completely certain became uncertain. According to the way the Bible tells it, Easter is first and foremost about that kind of uncertainty.   The people who came to the empty tomb that first Easter morning came to it certain about a part of their lives, and, after they left the empty tomb, they were more uncertain about it then they had ever been. And what certainty does Easter seek to make less certain?   When followers of Jesus went to the tomb that first Easter morning, they were certain that Jesus’ life was completely over.   Why else would they bring spices with them?   They came with spices that were used to embalm dead bodies so that the stench from the tombs wouldn’t be overwhelming.   They came expecting what had been their experience - that death eventua

DUST, DEATH AND DISCIPLESHIP

Lent is that forty-day period before Easter that many churches have set aside as a time of reflection upon Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross and our response to that sacrifice.   Lent, basically, is a season of spiritual inventory. In Genesis 2:4b-7, we read how God created us out of dust.   In Genesis 3:1-19, we read how we will return to that dust.   Physically speaking, our origin and our destination are one and the same – dust! Do you know that household dust is made up mostly of the discarded skin cells of the occupants of that house?   Sometime, when you’re brave and you can handle a sobering dose of biblical reality, lift up the bedspread from where it touches the floor, get on your hands and knees and stare your mortality square in the face! Doing so is part of what Lent is all about.   That’s why some people have cross-shaped smears of ashes put on their foreheads on Ash Wednesday.   Those smears are a reminder that we are all returning to dust, which is a rather eup