Thought for week ending 3 April

 

1 Peter 3:18

Christ suffered and died for our sins once for all time.  He never sinned, but he died for sinners to bring you safely home to God.  He suffered physical death, but he was raised to life in the Spirit.

 

My two favourite times in the church calendar are Christmas and Easter.  I love the music that enhances both these celebrations.  Both stories have a happy ending but the events prior to the happy endings are quite different.

Next week is regarded as Holy Week and it is a time for all Christians to reflect on what Jesus taught in his last week in this world, on the horrors he knew he was going to face and the sheer emotional and psychological burden of it all.

He washed the disciples’ feet teaching us humility and to never think that we are better than our brother or our sister.  We learn that it is not enough for us just to know the right things we should be doing, we actually have to do them.

He cleared the temple of those people who had turned it into something it wasn’t meant to be.  He cursed the fig tree that didn’t have any fruit.  He related the parable about the evil farmers.  The religious leaders realised these actions and these parables were all about them so they put questions to him that they hoped would trip him up and give them some reasons to punish him.  In every case, he had an  answer they could not shoot down.  They must have resented him for his wisdom, his miracles, his popularity and his reputation and hated him for his criticism of them and his lack of respect for their lofty positions in the temple hierarchy.  They saw no other alternative than having him killed.  It might make you think of how he would view the leadership in all the Christian Churches in the world if he was to return today and how they, in turn, would view him.

Next week is Holy Week.  Put some time aside whether with others, possibly at some of the mid-week services that some churches hold, or on your own to reflect on what our Lord went through in that last week of his earthly life.  It was all on our behalf that he made that ‘once for all time’ perfect sacrifice, dying for sinners although he had never sinned.  Peter writes that because of all these things that happened so long ago, belief and trust in him can bring us ‘safely home  to God’ in this life and the next.

Prayer:

Heavenly Father, we thank you that Jesus was willing to suffer in our place for our sins. We thank you that he was willing to lay down his life for us so that by his death he could bring us to God. We thank you that his work on the Cross is finished and that there is nothing that we need to do to be saved, other than to genuinely believe and trust in him. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit we pray, Amen