A reflection on the biblical character Barabbas by Jason Eady, someone I hadn’t heard of before.
It has some interesting phrasings and perspectives.
“Well the guilt hangs twice as heavy when it’s followed by a surprise
I’d surrendered, I was ready to give up and do my time
I did not know his name, did not know why he was there
But on this side of forgiveness we both have our cross to bear”
I’m glad Easter is not just one day a year for Christians.
Paul Tripp writes a thoughtful meditation on the brave love of Joseph of Arimathea, the man who publicly identified himself as a disciple of Jesus when all seemed lost, and who provided a tomb for a much shorter period of time than he would have thought.
From the article:
While the other disciples were hiding in confusion and fear, Joseph of Arimathea acted with remarkable courage and love. If you noticed from the passage, this man had everything to lose with this move. He was a member of the inner council of the Sanhedrin, and it was his peers who had just put pressure on Pilate to try Jesus for treason and hang him on a cross.
Asking for the body of this crucified man was a public declaration of his love for Jesus. Joseph of Arimathea would no longer be a secret disciple (John 19:38). When he could have remained under the radar, Joseph inserted himself into the middle of a religious and political drama, the very drama that sent the rest of the disciples into hiding. In one move, Joseph risked everything: his wealth, his reputation, his power, and even his life.
But Joseph of Arimathea loved his Lord too much to let his body rot on the cross or be ignominiously thrown with other criminals into some shallow public grave. With a heart of worship, he gave to the Messiah a tomb, and with a heart of love, he buried his Lord with honor.Read the whole post here.
Will Willimon on why human understanding never expects resurrection:
Mary’s perfectly logical, understandably natural need to pursue the body of her beloved Jesus has not yet room for the miracle that has happened. The voice of Jesus has called to her, across an abyss of death, thrown a line to her across the cavernous expanse between her little logic of red wheelbarrows and all that and the power of God to work wonder. Like the voice that shatters glass, the voice of Jesus has shattered Mary’s world, called her forward to new possibility, new future.
Mary is now able to obey, to tell the others, “I have seen the Lord” (vs. 18). She has moved beyond her preoccupation with the corpse to an encounter with Christ. Her cause-effect logic is replaced by the larger logic called faith. She has been encountered, not by the dead corpse she thought she was seeing, but by a living Lord who is on the move and will not be held by us on our little logic.
Now there are at least two ways to think about things: cognition has two paths to the point of recognition. The first is, say, when you’re working on a tough math problem and after much effort you say, “I got it!”
The other way is, say, when you go to a great movie, and it changes you, lays hold of you to the very depths and you emerge changed. In that case, you don’t say, “I got it!” No. It gets you.Read the whole post here.
We won’t sing this as a congregational song, but it’s one of my favourites for Easter Sunday.
Fortunately there’s no embargo and no spoilers involved in posting this tonight.
Easter Song by Keith Green.
Live And Breathe sung by Christa Wells and Nicole Witt.
