Tag Archives: Jesus

Follow along: Holy Week readings.

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Here some helpful tools for tracking the words and works of Holy Week. Spanning from Palm Sunday to Resurrection Sunday (Easter), we see the life of Jesus on display in and around Jerusalem. The plot thickens as His life mission will climax in his agonizing death, leading to His triumphant resurrection. He truly laid death in His grave, conquering all His enemies (sin, death, and Satan). Our hope is in the One who for love gave up His life so we may live. The innocent died in place of the guilty, the just for the unjust, in order to bring us to God (1 Pet. 3:18).

Let us remember the words of our Lord:

“This is why the Father loves me: because I freely lay down my life. And so I am free to take it up again. No one takes it from me. I lay it down of my own free will. I have the right to lay it down; I also have the right to take it up again. I received this authority personally from my Father.”

—John 10:17-18, The Message

See It

Visual graphic of the events of Holy Week on a timeline (via BibleGateway.com). It is a visualization of the ‘Who,’ ‘What,’ and ‘Where’ of Holy Week.

For example, to below is a closeup of the chart showing Jesus in Gethsemane and his betrayal by Judas. First Jesus draws aside Peter, James, and John and entreats them to pray while Jesus also prays. Then Judas and a crowd arrive; Judas betrays Judas with a kiss, Jesus is arrested, and the disciples flee, while Peter and John follow at a distance. The visualization shows you the main actors in the story and provides Bible references for you to read the story yourself.

[click image to enlarge]

Read It

Justin Taylor has attempted harmony/chronology of the words and actions of Jesus in the final week of his pre-resurrection life (with help from the ESV Study Bible). Here are links, organized by day:

 

Download all of the Scriptures above compiled into one PDF document: Holy Week Timeline (37 pages).

Also, see the geography and harmony of Holy Week re-enacted in Google Earth.

Let this week be full of contemplation, and consider the great cost of God the Father crushing God the Son, to reconcile us and the world to Himself.

 

Alive Again and Forevermore.

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For we who trust Jesus as Savior, we are awakened to the reality that every day we need Him. Not just on that final day, to take us to heaven. He came to rescue us from the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of God’s beloved Son (Colossians 2:13-14). And he keeps on rescuing us. We have been saved, we are being saved, and we shall be saved completely in the end.

In theology these experiences are summarized as justification, sanctification, and glorification. We have been saved from the penalty of sin, justified with God through Jesus’ perfect live, sacrificial death, and victorious resurrection. We are being saved from the power of sin in our daily lives, being set apart (sanctified) by God for wholeness to join in His mission in the renewal of all things. We will one day be completely rescued from the presence of sin, no longer able to bow down to idols for Christ will be all-consuming, even being the light of all eternity. These experiences overall in a convergence of grace words cannot adequately describe!

There are deeper nuances to this thrilling doctrines, for we will never stop learning of the greatness of God’s kindness towards us in Jesus (Ephesians 2:7). (If embracing these truths bores you, consider if you are alive to God. We will dwell on them for all eternity.)

Today we have a great gift to sing of these amazing truths. A musician friend reminded me that when we sing good theology we “feel a thought.” Words alone or musical sound alone cannot produce this experience. The collision of the two takes us deeper into the truth; opportunity to embrace it through and through. We who were dead in darkness have now seen a great light; He’s made us alive again. Let’s continually sing about it.

Alive Again
(by Matt Maher)

You called and You shouted
Broke through my deafness

Now I’m breathing in and breathing out
I’m alive again

You called and You shouted
Broke through my deafness

Now I’m breathing in and breathing out
I’m alive again

You shattered my darkness
Washed away my blindness

Now I’m breathing in and breathing out
I’m alive again
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