Fearlessly CourageousDesk of Dennis Piller4 7 2023
The death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ – do—and should—change everything!
God’s story and our stories culminate this week, and it’s simultaneously the beginning of everything we do for the rest of the year. We can think of this week as our spiritual pilgrimage to Easter morning. If we miss Holy Week, it’s harder to fully appreciate and celebrate Easter itself. Holy Week is an immersion experience, not just a time for deep thinking. It invites us into the culmination of our Lenten journeys as we walk the path Jesus walked and follow Him more deeply into the abundant life He offers us now.
It’s not too late. Say yes to the invitation (not an obligation) to join Jesus on the journey to the cross.
For us in the 21st century, is there a better time to evaluate our own agendas and loyalties? Are we citizens of the Kingdom of God or the kingdoms of this world? How might our loyalty to Christ’s kingdom change the way we relate to our enemies, our neighbors, and our children? Ask your teens or children:
What are they hoping and waiting for? In what ways have they felt disappointed by God?
Let them open up and be honest here. Jesus rarely does what we expect Him to, but the good news is that it’s always better than what we expect, even when we fight it, even when we often can’t see it right now. His love and His sovereignty are trustworthy.
On Thursday, Jesus instituted a radical new commandment of love, essentially turning the social order upside-down as He washed the feet of His disciples, something that was typically only done by a lowly servant.
You might even want to get up and pray for an hour during the night, remembering in a very tangible way the disciples’ charge to watch and pray. In his book Ancient-Future Time, Robert E. Webber writes: "It is important that we avoid a mere intellectual recalling of Jesus’ pain. Unless we actually subject our bodies and stomach to a meaningful discipline, the actual sense of experiencing Christ’s suffering will elude us. As our bodies become tired and our muscles begin to ache, our eyes to burn, our stomachs to hunger, and our spirits to grow dim, we begin to experience in a physical and psychological way a touch of our Lord’s pain. This physical and spiritual sadness is a way of actually entering into Christ’s death in an empathetic way, creating a sense of spiritual oneness with him. How far you choose to take this with your own family is totally up to you—you know them best!"Good Friday is one of the most powerful and emotional days of our year. It’s the ultimate representation of sorrow and joy intertwined. We want to call things either good or bad, sad or happy, but the reality is that sometimes they’re both. We can hold grief, anger, or disappointment in one hand and, at the same time, the overwhelming peace and comfort of God’s faithful love and mercy in the other hand. Joseph foreshadowed in Genesis 50:20, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”Holy Saturday is a strange day in the church year. It’s dark, and honestly, it points out an existential crisis for all of humanity. God in Christ is dead in the grave, and humanity has killed him. The very love of God has been rejected by man. For those followers of Jesus living that first Holy Saturday, all of their hopes had just been dashed: The One who they thought had come to save, restore, and free them had just been killed in the cruelest of manners at the hands of the same oppressive government they had hoped He would overthrow. It was the ultimate punch in the face; Rome was still in charge. . .
or so it seemed.As you wait, be still and know. . . .Remember who God is, whatever good or hard things you may be going through. He is the God who takes a hopeless situation and doesn’t merely make it okay, doesn’t just make the best of it, but redeems it along with the entire world. As we lie paralyzed by our fears, inabilities, and unbelief, God works mightily on our behalf, through no striving of our own. Jesus did not just lie dormant in the grave; He conquered sin and death and hell, setting the captives—indeed, us—free. If God can bring life out of his own death, there is nothing God can’t do.Holy Saturday represents the worst of humanity, yet God brought life out of it. We can only appreciate Easter at its fullest when we embrace the darkness of Saturday.According to 1 Corinthians, if Christ was not raised, our faith is futile, and we are lost in our sins. This event is the hinge of our faith, and it changes everything. The fact that this bodily resurrection happened matters. Says Dr. Simon Greenleaf, “According to the laws of legal evidence used in courts of law, there is more evidence for the historical fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ than for just about any other event in history.”We have to not only know the Easter fact but also have an Easter faith.If Christ has indeed been raised, what does that mean for us now? N.T. Wright, in his book Surprised by Hope, proposes that “What we say about death and resurrection gives shape and color to everything else.” Jesus conquered death through “suffering love”. God shared in all that we are, all that we humans have to undergo, and because of that, He offers us a way through and beyond suffering to a new life. Jesus shows us the victory of suffering love. Despite everything that happened to Him on the cross, He goes on loving us to the very end. And “in this way, He shows love is stronger than hatred,” even stronger than death.Outside things are beginning to bloom, and the world is coming to life again, but inside it may still feel like winter—like a long, dark, bleak winter. But the good news is: Spring is coming, and indeed is slowly arriving even now, and with that spring comes renewal and new life and glory. If you remember this excerpt from CS Lewis's book: And as in Narnia, spring doesn’t arrive via our own efforts. Spring is coming because Aslan is on the move because Jesus is King. And when He comes, we will see fully that truth we know now: that what we have gained in Christ is far greater than what we have lost. Lauren Daigle Rescuehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYR0xP1j4PY&list=PL3oW2tjiIxvTstLS9GlgaT_mqONT0WVDw This was a condensed piece from axis A parents' guide to Holy Week & Easter.
