Palm Sunday was last Sunday (3/28/10), Passover began on Tuesday (3/30/10), today is Good Friday... and then Sunday is Easter (4/4/10). Some of you may not even know what all of this means. Well, let me throw you a couple of simple definitions to enlighten your mind.
- Palm Sunday: Christians celebrate the Triumphal Entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem, the week before his death and resurrection. For many Christians, Palm Sunday, often referred to as "Passion Sunday," marks the beginning of Holy Week, which concludes on Easter Sunday. The Bible reveals that when Jesus entered Jerusalem, the crowds greeted him with waving palm branches, and by covering his path with palm branches. Immediately following this great time of celebration in the ministry of Jesus, he begins his journey to the cross.
- Passover: Jesus celebrated passover with His disciples. Passover is an 8 day celebration observed by the Jewish community to remember the 10 plagues God inflicted on Egypt because of Pharaoh's hard heart and determination not tp let them go praise God as He commanded. God's final act was the night He "passed over" the Jews (if they followed His direction to mark their door frames with the blood of a one-year-old male lamb with no defeats); and all the firstborn sons (human & animal) of Egypt died. This was what finally moved Pharaoh to push Israel to their exodus from Egypt and slavery (refer back to Exodus 11 - 12 for details).
- Good Friday: Also called Holy Friday, Great Friday or Black Friday, is a holiday observed commemorating the passion, or suffering, of Jesus Christ and His death on the cross. Good Friday comes at the end of the Holy Week, and always precedes Easter Sunday. Good Friday is traditionally a time of fasting and penance.
- Easter: Also called RESURRECTION DAY/SUNDAY. And I hope you can simply guess why. This is the day we celebrate our LIVING SAVIOR, OUR RISEN GOD. When Mary Magdalene, Salome and Mary the mother of James arrived at the tomb, there wasn't a dead body there for them to see! God has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. We, through faith in the working of God, are spiritually resurrected with Jesus so that we may walk in a new way of life today to eternity.
This is the foundation of our faith ladies and gents. If you don't believe this, you don't believe God's Word, because everything in His Word points to Jesus and this. God will judge the world in righteousness, and we better be covered by the blood of Jesus before that day comes.
IF YOU ARE NOT SAVED PLEASE FEEL FREE TO REACH OUT TO ME!
Happy Good Friday! It is a special week and a good day!
If Jesus wouldn't have been obedient to His purpose, where would we be?
Again I choose to use The Passion of The Christ for visual imagery. Please be advised that there is blood.
PRAYER: Father, help me to quiet the noise that sometimes distracts me and clutters my life, and give me the discipline and courage to pull away from it all to spend quality time with you as Jesus did so many times throughout His time here on earth. He withdrew privately to a solitary place, sometimes sending the disciples ahead of himself so that He could pray. So that He could spend time with You (Matthew 14:13,22-23). My desire is to have more one on one time with You. In Jesus name, amen.
The biblical account of Palm Sunday to Easter can be found in Mark 11-16 (we've already read about it in Matthew 21-28, and it can also be found in Luke starting at Luke 19:28; and John starting at John 12:12).
Jesus said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation." Mark 16:15*Definitions from Wikipedia & Google Search. Prayer via CCC (NY)
No comments:
Post a Comment