My Hope

  Every Easter the story is the same, and yet it’s new again.  It never ceases to amaze me how God can open our eyes and draw us in deeper and deeper to a story we thought we already knew by heart.     This year is no exception.  I’ve been reading a book published in 2020 by Dr. Drew Hart called  Who Will be a Witness?  and he highlighted Barabbas, the criminal that the Jews demanded be set free.     Matthew describes him as a notorious prisoner and both Mark and Luke point out that he was a murderer. These were not new to me.  This has shaped the picture I’ve always had of Barabbas.  But when I’ve pictured notorious murders the ones that come to mind are Ted Bundy, Jeffery Dahmer, John Wilkes Booth… I can go on, but you get the picture.  Why would anyone cry for them to be re-released into society?  How could the priests get the crowds so riled up that they would choose someone...

Where are you in your relationship with Christ this Resurrection Sunday? Are you dining at the Passover supper with Jesus- blissfully unaware of what you’ll soon be called to do? Do you know that something is coming, but you’re focused more on who is sitting where? Are you looking for someone to overturn the oppressive government or do you search for a servant king? Maybe you’re in the garden, fighting to stay awake. You know what you’ve been told to do and yet you struggle to obey. Maybe you’ve seen the innocent mistreated and you react in anger and violence rather than allowing God to bring justice. Perhaps you’ve just experienced the death of your Rabbi, teacher and friend. You don’t know what to do and so you hide from this world and wait until things are clearer. You protect yourself by denying your relationship. Maybe you’ve seen the risen Messiah. You have touched his hands and feet. Now he is telling you that you will suffer the same. Will you accept the ...

Easter is coming up soon and I’m excited to see what this reminder of Christ’s resurrection will bring. I know that Christ lives within me the entire year through, but I feel this time of year is an amazing time of both reflection and renewal of my faith. Perhaps it’s because I was baptized on Maundy Thursday fifteen years ago, but I think it’s more than that. We are reminded during this time that death has no grip on us- that Christ has overcome the grave- and Satan has been defeated. I don’t think this is lost on Satan either, so it’s a time we must be prepared to fight the spiritual battles of this world. I gained a different perspective on Easter eight years ago. I’ve always tried to picture it through Jesus’ vantage point but came to realize how it must have pained God to give up his firstborn son as well. He knew it was coming and he knew the grave could not hold him, and yet death would not Passover His begotten Son as it had the Israelites so many years before. I pos...