Well, let me start today by saying … ‘Happy Easter!’ Today, in celebration of Jesus’ resurrection, we’re beginning a new series which will basically explain—perhaps in ways you’ve never thought of before—why Jesus came and did what he did for us. And what we’re going to discover together today and for the next several weeks is … it’s all about relationship! Are you familiar with the old game called ‘Simon Says’? You know, you’ve got one person who is the caller and says ‘Simon says … whatever.’ And when that...
Jesus ‘set his face’ toward Jerusalem (Luke 9:51, NRSV); that’s what our Lenten worship series will be all about this year. And what does that mean … to ‘set your face’? It means to determine to do something—to do something deliberately, with no chance involved. Whatever you’re determined to do, to ‘set your face’ to, you mean to do just that; in other words, it’s deliberate… For Jesus, it was ‘setting his face’ toward Jerusalem—going up to Jerusalem (since it’s located on a mountain) … and all that that meant....
Rev. Carl Burnham, beloved pastor of the Chapel on Fir Hill in Akron, Ohio, wrote in 1962, just prior to his [death], ‘When I die, if my family wishes to inscribe anything on my gravestone, I would like it to be the promise of Jesus Christ in Hebrews 13:5, ‘I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”” For in due season the springtime will arrive…Then, when the resurrection sings itself in the robin’s glad song, and bursting buds defy the death grip of winter, and you walk upon the yielding...
In a book called “Through the Windows of Heaven,” the authors tell us this: Science says if there is any such thing as infallible proof, it is the repetition of the same experiment. With that in mind, hear this: • Jesus rose from the dead, and Mary Magdalene encountered him—experiment one. • The women encountered him—experiment two. • The disciples encountered him—experiment three. • The apostles encountered him—experiment four. • Five hundred people saw him after the Resurrection—experiment five. Each one of these … is the repetition of the same...
According to English author G.K. Chesterton, “Hope means hoping when things are hopeless, or it is no virtue at all…As long as matters are really hopeful, hope is mere flattery or platitude; it is only when everything is hopeless that hope begins to be a strength.” HOPE, folks, is the gift of Easter! It was for the earliest of disciples … and it still is for us! It’s the ‘sign of Jonah’ that Jesus spoke of, isn’t it? Jonah spent how many days in the belly of the whale (3)?...
