The Sylvr Pen

How was your Easter/Resurrection Day? Meaningful? Joyous? I think this year’s was my most richly meaningful.

Why? The whole month’s focus. My commitment to Easter-relevant blog posting each weekday kept pointing my attention in an “Easter-ly” direction. Yesterday just continued that focus.

(Husband) Jim had asked me the night before if I’d ever put myself in the shoes (sandals) of any of Passion Week’s eye witnesses. That prompted my brain, on waking, to think of the women going to the tomb, to imagine what they might have been thinking and feeling.

Morning church service, then dinner time back home, with its table décor, cross cake, and chocolate lamb, kept reminding me what this Day was about. Jim also read resurrection prophecies and accounts from the Bible. And we played a magnificent recording of The Messiah during dinner.

After we finished eating, we just kept sitting there, listening to the whole thing, reading its lyrics, moved especially by the resurrection section. Awesome thoughts and feelings. Such a blessing to have been able to do all that. Beautiful day!

What I’m going to do today (God willing):

~ Bake hot cross buns (for tomorrow’s late breakfast–yum!)

~ Make carrot cake (a husband favorite–for after tomorrow’s dinner).

~ Cut cake into cross shape, (snitch a bit of the trimmings!), frost, and decorate with frosting flowers and the words “He is Risen!” (Now a family tradition.)

~Dust. Polish up dining table.

~ Iron hand-appliqueed-and-embroidered tablecloth and napkins (spring thing I sometimes use at Easter)

~ Arrange some “silk” Easter Lilies in a centerpiece.

~ Call friend who may be spending “Easter” afternoon alone and invite her to tomorrow’s dinner and some leisurely sit-and-chat time afterward.

What I’m doing right now (interrupted by writing this):

I’m sitting with a cup of good coffee, in a comfortable chair, reading and meditating on the rest of the gospel accounts, after the death of our Lord Jesus Christ (Mt 27:57-28:20; Mk 15:42-16:20; Lk 23:50-24:53; Jhn 19:38-21:25).

Preparation for tomorrow’s joy. And joy today. First things first!

🙂

He was led as a lamb to the slaughter… For the transgression of My people He was stricken… Because He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth… You make His soul an offering for sin” (Isaiah 53:7-10)

It appears not only in Isaiah’s precise prophecy, but all over the Old Testament, in so many offerings for sin, transgression, atonement, peace, and free-will giving: the lamb.

In the New Testament, John the Baptist reveals what all these examples foreshadowed–Jesus, “the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29)–and Peter reminds believers that it’s by “the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb…” that we are redeemed, rescued, saved (1 Pt 1:18-20)–a “lamb without blemish or spot.”

Spotless

Without blemish or spot: a critically important requirement of the lamb in every case (Lev 22:20). Over and over the requirements for the various sacrifices and offerings repeat the phrase “without blemish” (e.g., Ex 12:5; Lev 1:10;3:6;4:32;5:15,18, etc.).

So important was this requirement that when God’s Old Testament people began to fudge on it, God stormed against them (as in Mal 1:8,14).

What about Christ, Who is supposed to be our offering? Was He without fault?

The Bible says every question like that should be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. The gospels cite way more than that–and it’s interesting to see who they are!

Witnesses for the Prosecution… er, Defense!

First to fail in finding anything wrong in Him were the very religious leaders who were trying so hard to fault Him, the chief priests and Pharisees (Mt 26:59-61). What they finally settled on as His terrible sin was His claim to be the Son of God (Mt 26:64; Lk 22:70-71)–no sin at all if it’s the truth!

Yet on this basis, they hauled Him off to Pilate, to get him to do the dirty work the Roman law forbade them: putting Him to death. But Pilate, after examining Him, could only say, “I find no fault in this Man” (Lk 23:4,14).

Herod, also, when Pilate tried to pass the buck (or rather, Lamb) to him, also failed to find any fault (Lk 23:15), and passed Him back to Pilate.

As for the crowd demanding Christ’s crucifixion, when Pilate cried out to them, “Why? What evil has He done?” they gave no answer, only louder demand for Jesus’ death (Lk 23:21-23).

Judas lamented, “I have betrayed innocent blood!” (Mt 27:4).

The centurion overseeing His crucifixion said, “Certainly this was a righteous man!” (Lk 23:47).

And finally, the thief on the cross, who earlier had evidently joined the mob’s reviling (Mt 27:44), repented before he died, and declared, “We are punished justly, …getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong” (Lk 23:41 NIV).

Results

This cloud of witnesses is nothing short of amazing. It includes all the high officials, and the lowest of the low, even those who tried hardest to find sin in Him.

Faultless, He was. Faultless, we aren’t! We need that “Lamb of God,” to “take away the sin of the world.” Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!

He Taught.

He Healed.

He Admonished.

He Washed away the flesh’s dirt—as on His disciples’ feet.

Even in His last, excruciating week.

Those thoughts gave me the acronym, THAW. Fitting, because what He did, at what cost, ought to have thawed the coldest heart. But, as C. H. Spurgeon said, “The same sun which melts wax hardens clay. And the same Gospel which melts some persons to repentance hardens others in their sins.”

The Light of Christ shining on men as He walked among them, and later hung on the cross, did likewise.

Betrayers with Dirty Feet

I am thinking right now about Judas, His betrayer. About the night Jesus washed His feet. I am wondering how he, after living so closely with Him for three years, could experience that gentle washing and receive His bread, dipped in the wine (John 13:5,26-27), then go right out and betray Him for a paltry few coins, as Psalm 41:9 and Zechariah 11:12-13 had prophesied.

Peter (as well as the other disciples) I can understand. He meant what He said in Mat 26:33,35, and Luke  22:33. He even acted upon those words when he whipped out that sword and whacked off the soldier’s ear (bad aim, but brave spirit). But when things went so counter to what he expected, when Christ actually rebuked him for the act and restored the severed ear, and all those soldiers stood there in the shadows looking at him, fear froze his heart and instantly he fled. As did the other disciples.

Heart-freezing Terror

That terror laid hold of him again as, standing in a courtyard later, he realized some of the people there recognized him. When pressed, he denied even knowing His most loving friend.

But not long after, burning shame thawed the fear-frozen heart. It left him self-loathing, but still Christ-loving. And the power of Jesus’ prayer (Lk 22:32) kept him, till he later saw Him as resurrected Christ, and melted in abject abasement before Him.

The Difference

That’s the difference between unrepentance and repentance: Judas and Peter. Both had remorse. Peter had repentance. Peter surrendered to receiving Christ’s forgiveness, just as, after initial resistance, he accepted His foot-washing.

And so, by the power of God’s grace, Peter was restored. From there he went on to live out courageously, by that same power now filling Him, Jesus’ commandment to “strengthen the brethren,” becoming an incalculably great gift to all believers, even us today!

How it Works

I know a repentant murderer, who one day received a prison visit from his victim’s father, who expressed his forgiveness and washed his feet.

Can you imagine the repentant’s emotion? Much like Peter’s. Just reading his written account of this incident to my home study group evoked sobs and tears.

What a picture of Christ’s intent in foot-washing, and His Father’s forgiving love—of how 1 John 1:9 works out in real life! If we have accepted Christ’s initial cleansing, like Peter we don’t need another full bath. But walking through this world, our fleshly feet can step into some pretty gross filth. Still, we can get clean again.

Full bath and foot-washing: gifts of the cross, to which human hearts either harden–or thaw.