Christ the Lord has risen today

Christ the Lord has risen today.
He is alive ... He has risen!
Hallelujah!

It's just my way of talking to God....

A campfire, a guitar, and this song....

"Hail to God's Ambassador!" ... Palm Sunday 2010

"The next day, the news that Jesus was on the way to Jerusalem swept through the city, and a huge crowd of Passover visitors took palm branches and went down the road to meet him, shouting, 'The Savior! God bless the King of Israel! Hail to God's Ambassador!' "

--John 12:12-13 (The Living Bible)

How Great Thou Art

This version of How Great Thou Art by Alan Jackson almost reaches the height of the version I heard at a friend's funeral on Saturday from a gentleman whose voice boomed to the heavens and shook the rafters, all for the glory of God. An all-time favorite and somehow very appropriate....

Easter ... Christ the Lord has risen

Christ the Lord has risen today.

Hallelujah.

The betrayal....

Judas. He betrayed Jesus even though he had been His close friend, His disciple. He began to find fault with the things Jesus said and did. He complained to Jesus and, when Jesus gently rebuked him, Judas was incensed.

Luke 22:3-6 tells what happened next:

Then Satan entered Judas, surnamed Iscariot, who was numbered among the twelve. So he went his way and conferred with the chief priests and captains, how he might betray Him to them. And they were glad, and agreed to give him money. Then he promised and sought opportunity to betray Him to them in the absense of the multitude.

Not even Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem as King of Israel could dissuade Judas from his course. Judas had convinced himself that Jesus was a false Messiah and that He had to pay for His deception.

So Judas betrayed Jesus, who was arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to die -— just as He had foretold. With the prophecies fulfilled before his eyes, Judas Iscariot saw how He had misunderstood all along.

Matthew 27:3-5 says:

Then Judas, His betrayer, seeing that He had been condemned, was remorseful and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, "I have sinned by betraying innocent blood." And they said, "What is that to us? You see to it!" Then he threw down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed, and went and hanged himself.

But it was too late. All the remorse in the world could not undo the damage he had caused. He had condemned the Savior of the world, the King of kings, to a cruel, shameful, painful death by crucifixion.

Good Friday. Jesus agonized on the cross for three hours while the sun was darkened. With a loud cry, Jesus gave up his spirit. There was an earthquake and tombs broke open.

The centurion on guard at the site of the crucifixion declared, "Truly this was God's Son!"

Good Friday

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. -- John 3:16-17

Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man shall be betrayed unto the chief priests and unto the scribes, and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver him to the Gentiles to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify him: and the third day he shall rise again. -- Matthew 20:18,19

Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. -- Matthew 20:28

An extraordinary life....

Earlier this week I posted "One Solitary Life" about an extraordinary man. Kilo posts the Bing Crosby video (1 minutes 48 seconds) ... a solemn reminder of the reason for the season.

"One Solitary Life"

He was a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another obscure village, where he worked in a carpenter's shop until he was thirty. Then for three years he was an itinerant preacher.

He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family or owned a home. He never set foot inside a big city. He never traveled two hundred miles from the place he was born. He did none of the things that usually accompany greatness.

While He was still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against him. His friends deserted him. He was turned over to his enemies, and went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves. While he was dying, his executioners gambled for the only piece of property he had -- his coat.

When he was dead, he was taken down and laid in a borrowed grave.

Nineteen centuries have come and gone, and today he is the central figure for much of the human race. All the armies that ever marched, and all the navies that ever sailed, and all the parliaments that ever sat, and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of people on this earth as powerfully as this "One Solitary Life."