Soul Sister Time

              On blessed Good Friday, the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) record something extraordinary that occurred in the most secret places of the Hebrew religion.  It is an occurrence that the Hebrews would pay special notice to because it was so rare and unexpected.  The implications of what it meant were most likely overlooked by the people who witnessed it, but it became very significant to the Jewish converts.  Matthew wrote about it in Mathew 27:51: At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split. Matthew tells us the direction in which the curtain was torn.  It was torn from top to bottom.  How many repairs do you imagine had been made to that curtain across the hundreds of years of use?  What was necessary to maintain an extremely thick curtain woven from very specific materials?  The Torah has all kinds of details about the curtain from the time the task of making it was given to the Israelites g

              What does an empty tomb mean to you?  When you approach an empty tomb what goes through your mind?                When Peter and John approached the empty tomb, scripture tells us they believed but did not understand.  John 20:8-10:   Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.)   Then the disciples went back to where they were staying .                 On Easter, we celebrate the empty tomb.  The empty tomb was the first sign of hope.  Its emptiness turned the followers of Christ mind’s back on God and His Kingdom work.  They did not fully understand what its emptiness meant.  They knew that God was at work.               It was later in the day that Jesus began revealing Himself, first to Mary Magdalene who was alone in the garden, overwhelmed by her grief and despair because she did not understand.  Later in the afternoon

May you experience a holy Holy Week…I participated in daily Holy Week devotions at my church.  You can watch and reflect on the video devotions about Jesus Seven Sayings from the Cross each day at:  http://www.pcbc.org/worship/easter/holy-week-devotionals/ Jesus from the Cross               Jesus’ journey to the cross was extraordinarily short, yet it transformed death from being eternal to only temporary. He literally trampled death by death.   Jesus was arrested around 1:30 a.m.; and by 3:00 p.m. that same day He was dead.  In less than 14 hours He was tried by illegal courts, flogged, walked the 650 yards to Golgotha, the place of the skull, crucified on a cross and died.  Though God asked so much of Him, He would not permit the suffering to last one minute longer than necessary. Jesus hung on the cross from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m.  Those were probably six of the longest hours of human history.  During those six hours, Jesus spoke seven times.  Each time He spoke, He had to inh

              Why didn’t Jesus choose John as the apostle upon whom to build His church?  John was the good guy; he didn’t betray, deny or reject Jesus in any way.  He had strong leadership skills and was one of the youngest of the disciples and, in fact, did live the longest.  It makes perfect sense to me to give the responsibility of building the church over to John, rather than Peter.               I’m not God, and thank God I am not, because handing over the leadership of the church to John may have looked promising from the foot of the cross, but Jesus knew that Peter was the best man to show Christians what their relationship with Him is all about.  Peter’s infamous denial of Jesus and Jesus’ ultimate forgiveness is an example to us all.  John had other responsibilities in God’s kingdom: protecting Mary, writing a theological gospel different from the others, sending pastoral letters to the church encouraging them to focus on love and, chief among them, ultimately sharing th