Eight Days To Easter: What Have You Done With This Man?

  1. Eight Days to Easter
  2. Eight Days To Easter: Hail the King of Kings
  3. Eight Days To Easter: What Does He Want?
  4. Eight Days To Easter: Whose Side Is He On?
  5. Eight Days To Easter: Who Is On This Man’s Side?
  6. Eight Days To Easter: Who Loves like This?
  7. Eight Days To Easter: Whose King?
  8. Eight Days To Easter: What Now?
  9. Eight Days To Easter: What Have You Done With This Man?

There’s no need for spices.  As the women make their way to finish preparing him for burial, Jesus had enough of death. From this Sunrise forward death would lose its ground and life would rise from the earth like it did when the First Adam rose up filled with the breath of God.  Everything is new.  Jesus is alive!

Read John 20

It all makes sense now.  His reserved demeanor in the midst of “Hosanna!” his confrontational spirit, Judas, the disgrace of the Cross.   He came to save.  And if he came to save, he must have come to die that we might live with him. Today the disciples would complete their journey through Christ’s week of glory. They have passed from foolishness to fear and finally to faith.  At the end Jesus told Thomas, “Because you have seen me, you have believed.  Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Read The Revelation 1:17-18 and, if you believe, fall down before your Savior.

Prayer

O my Lord, I am blessed.  I have not seen, but I have watched you in your Word and seen your week of glory and I know now that you are alive. You have risen!  Blessed is he who took my death that I might have his life.  Blessed is he who bore my sins that I might wear his righteousness.  Blessed is he who comes in the Name of the Lord.  Amen. 

Prayer Prompts

Pray for joy worthy of Easter. Ask God why your heart is still so heavy.

Pray for the declaration of the Resurrection across the World. Pray that his elect would respond with faith.

Pray that the world itself would be made new its God’s time.

Pray that the resurrection life in you by God’s Spirit and your new birth would rise up and grow in grace.

Ask God to bring the life of Christ to your neighborhood, your workplace, your family, and your own heart.

Eight Days To Easter: What Now?

  1. Eight Days to Easter
  2. Eight Days To Easter: Hail the King of Kings
  3. Eight Days To Easter: What Does He Want?
  4. Eight Days To Easter: Whose Side Is He On?
  5. Eight Days To Easter: Who Is On This Man’s Side?
  6. Eight Days To Easter: Who Loves like This?
  7. Eight Days To Easter: Whose King?
  8. Eight Days To Easter: What Now?
  9. Eight Days To Easter: What Have You Done With This Man?

Today Jesus’ body lay silent, still and cold in the tomb.  He was truly dead.  He disciples will hide from wolves like sheep without a shepherd.

Read Luke 22:55-56

Still in obedience these women rest on the Sabbath. Still in the tomb Jesus is silent and there is no hope for Israel or the world.  Still his faithful are waiting in silence, for what is not clear.  Survival, perhaps comfort but, certainly not for the Kingdom of the Son.  He is dead.  They saw him die just yesterday.

Read Isaiah 25:8-9 and ask for faith to wait on a crucified Messiah.

Prayer

O Father, with the Church I cry out “Come quickly Jesus.  Come quickly.”  With the Church I ask you to bring hope from despair, joy from sorrow, even life from death. Hold me in your and that I may have the courage to wait upon your mercy. Amen.

Prayer Prompts

Pray for a vison of what your life would be like if Christ just died and didn’t rise.

Pray for a vision of what your life would be like if God had been silent and there 

Pray for the faith to wait in faith when you don’t understand how God could possible make things right.

Pray to understand the disciples despair, how it was both real and unnecessary. Then ask for insight into your own.

Pray to see all that God told you over and over, yet you haven’t really heard or understood. How would your life be different if you had ears to hear that?

Eight Days To Easter: Whose King?

  1. Eight Days to Easter
  2. Eight Days To Easter: Hail the King of Kings
  3. Eight Days To Easter: What Does He Want?
  4. Eight Days To Easter: Whose Side Is He On?
  5. Eight Days To Easter: Who Is On This Man’s Side?
  6. Eight Days To Easter: Who Loves like This?
  7. Eight Days To Easter: Whose King?
  8. Eight Days To Easter: What Now?
  9. Eight Days To Easter: What Have You Done With This Man?

“You are mistaken!  I have never met the man.  I am not one of his disciples.”  “Crucify him!  Crucify Him!  We have no King but Caesar.”  “I wash my hands of this man.  His blood is on your heads.” Those are the words of a friend, countrymen and Rome’s judge.  They speak in harmony today.  The Christ, who alone can save, will die alone, the solitary Savior.

Read Matthew 26:36-27:61. Read for the e broad narrative strokes and not the details.

Christ is alone upon the cross, abandoned by friends, rejected by countrymen.  His piercing grief and pain is so full and so deep that the Messiah cries out “My God, my God!  Why have you forsaken me.” The loneliness of crucifixion is a bruising burden that crushes him.  A man dies today on that cross and in death he will taste every sorrow we do and infinitely more.

Read Psalm 69:20-21 and Matthew 27:28 and ponder the solitude of an uncomforted Savior.

Prayer

To Him we left alone, yet did not flinch to save us,

To Him who was so alone that angels hid their faces,

To him alone we offer up our litany of praises.

May the multitudes return again to feast upon your graces,

May the nations offer you endless praise for ending sacrifices,

May the Bride surrender on her day to your divine embraces,

And may endless praise attend the One we left to suffer our disgraces. 

Prayer Prompts

Pray for faith to feel the weight of your own sin as demonstrated in the Cross. Could it be that you deserve that?

Pray for faith to feel the weight of God’s grace as demonstrated in the Cross. Ask for insight to God’s love.

Pray that the world would know of God’s justice and his mercy and of Christ’s perfect life and undeserved death.

Pray for understanding into the spiritual, relational, and physical solitude Christ’s endured too ultimately be with us.

Pray for the moment of your own death, that you might have lived in faith up to then, and die with hope.

Eight Days To Easter: Who Loves like This?

  1. Eight Days to Easter
  2. Eight Days To Easter: Hail the King of Kings
  3. Eight Days To Easter: What Does He Want?
  4. Eight Days To Easter: Whose Side Is He On?
  5. Eight Days To Easter: Who Is On This Man’s Side?
  6. Eight Days To Easter: Who Loves like This?
  7. Eight Days To Easter: Whose King?
  8. Eight Days To Easter: What Now?
  9. Eight Days To Easter: What Have You Done With This Man?

This evening Jesus dines one last time with his disciples at the celebration of the last Passover. Set on the table before him is an ancient picture of his destiny, drawn by Moses and colored real by his presence.  What’s  absent from the Gospel accounts of the Passover?  There is no mention of a lamb, other than Jesus himself, of course.  

Read Luke 22:14-23

“..he looked upon his blood as theirs and so he spilt it for them when it was needed for their happiness; he looked upon his flesh as theirs and so he gave it for their life…He looked on his soul as theirs, and therefore he poured out his soul unto death and made his soul an offering for their sins.”  Jonathan Edwards

Read John 13:1 and try to measure the full extent of this Savior’s love.

Prayer

O what measure is there in heaven or on earth that could mark your love for me.  How could I, who am dust, know its rising height or its expanding breadth when angels are stunned by its scope?  I cannot apprehend that which only divinity could conceive.  Nor can I return that which only God could give. It is too far and wide and deep for me. Yet, Lord, I want to swim in this love and drink it for eternity.  Give me the Spirit of wisdom and revelation so I might know a measure of the love you lavished so freely on your people.  Amen

Prayer Prompts

Pray for your Church. It too, is full of folks want to be great, deniers, betrayers, and those who don’t really know what’s happening.

Pray for eyes to see Christ’s spiritual presence in Holy Sacrament of Communion. Pray for fellowship in the break and wine.

Pray that the Church everywhere would awake to stand watch with Christ who thought ascended is still persecuted with his people.

Pray for the faith to enjoy Christ’s fellowship with you. He came all this way, served us Supper, and sent his Spirit to be with us.

Eight Days To Easter: Who Is On This Man’s Side?

  1. Eight Days to Easter
  2. Eight Days To Easter: Hail the King of Kings
  3. Eight Days To Easter: What Does He Want?
  4. Eight Days To Easter: Whose Side Is He On?
  5. Eight Days To Easter: Who Is On This Man’s Side?
  6. Eight Days To Easter: Who Loves like This?
  7. Eight Days To Easter: Whose King?
  8. Eight Days To Easter: What Now?
  9. Eight Days To Easter: What Have You Done With This Man?

As if to withdraw and give evil its free reign, today Jesus leaves Jerusalem, probably to Mary and Martha’s home in Bethany. His enemies, however, take no respite and find their diligence rewarded.  As Jesus reclines with the faithful while Judas walks to Jerusalem and trades the Savior for a sack of silver. 

Read Luke 22:1-6

With Jesus gone the city regains the measure of normalcy possible in the midst of Passover. And Judas, prompted by Satan, makes his way to the Sanhedrin.  Luke tells us they are delighted.  His covert mission was urged on and endorsed by the very enemies his Lord was striving against.   Today Jesus will lose a friend, the Disciples will lose a companion, Israel will lose a Messiah and God will set into motion his eternal plan to save that which was lost.

Read John 13:18. His love was not erased by his enemies.  Their schemes only served to cast his devotion in a brighter glow.

Prayer:

O my Christ, how deep was the betrayal you suffered for your Church and soon even the faithful would desert you in a Garden.   Still, you would not allow your love to be stayed nor surrender your mission.  Your love begins all love, waits for no one to love you first. It overflows upon the unlovely like a river over falls. O Lover of my soul, love me with this everlasting love and make me love you more.  Amen.

Prayer Prompts

Pray for a divided world that’s at odds about justice, money, history, values, politics, sexuality, etc.

Pray that you won’t compromise truth or the honor of Christ in a van effort to reconcile those tensions.

Pray for the faith and courage to live and speak in love as if Jesus is truly the only One who can bring the world peace.

Pray for the love to suffer with Christ, to endure hardship, contempt, exclusion, and loss just as he did for you.

Eight Days To Easter: Whose Side Is He On?

  1. Eight Days to Easter
  2. Eight Days To Easter: Hail the King of Kings
  3. Eight Days To Easter: What Does He Want?
  4. Eight Days To Easter: Whose Side Is He On?
  5. Eight Days To Easter: Who Is On This Man’s Side?
  6. Eight Days To Easter: Who Loves like This?
  7. Eight Days To Easter: Whose King?
  8. Eight Days To Easter: What Now?
  9. Eight Days To Easter: What Have You Done With This Man?

As the sun rises the Pharisees are shrewdly setting traps.  In blind ignorance and bold opposition, they’ll question his authority and allegiance (Mth. 21:23 & 22:15) and then his orthodoxy (Luke 20:27 & Matthew 22:34). His answers are filled with the wisdom he lent to Solomon and the zeal he granted Amos.  After today no one will dare to ask him any more questions.

Read Matthew 21:23-23:39. This is a long. Read for broad narrative strokes and not the details.

This was by far the most intense day before the Crucifixion.  Our Rabbi speaks out against the hypocrisy of his people and pronounces searing woes upon their leaders.  Still not finished, he reveals his apocalyptic vision with frightening clarity (Matthew 24 & Luke 21).  He’s determined to embrace the Cross.

Reflect on Matthew 23:37-39 and read Psalm 63:7-8.  His passion and zeal were born of ancient love, the same love that shelters us in the shadow of his wings.

Prayer

O My Savior King, how you fought for my salvation, how you threw yourself upon the tree, how you loved me with excelling love!  It is too much to my mind that you would go to my cross and greater still that you went so freely. But as I watch, you have run.  Such love divine, determined, and unmovable, is too extreme to record, too magnificent to repay, too grand to reject.  Your zeal was my salvation.  Amen

Prayer Prompts

Pray in thankful wonder about how extravagantly Jesus loved you- how he cast off his glory to come to us, the shame of the Cross.

Pray for faith to overcome specific doubts you have about God’ s love, especially as they relate to your most anxious unmet needs.

Pray that his zeal, having saved you, will work deeply to sanctify you.  Ask what you need to embrace or let go of to be more like him. 

Pray for the Church in your country. Ask Jesus what needs to be cleansed and pray that we have the faith to accept his discipline.

Eight Days To Easter: What Does He Want?

  1. Eight Days to Easter
  2. Eight Days To Easter: Hail the King of Kings
  3. Eight Days To Easter: What Does He Want?
  4. Eight Days To Easter: Whose Side Is He On?
  5. Eight Days To Easter: Who Is On This Man’s Side?
  6. Eight Days To Easter: Who Loves like This?
  7. Eight Days To Easter: Whose King?
  8. Eight Days To Easter: What Now?
  9. Eight Days To Easter: What Have You Done With This Man?

Monday— What Does He Want?

Jesus knows the week before him will end in his crucifixion and doubles his passion and urgency.  This man is going to die, and he has less than a week to finish his business.  The emotional power and strain of the accounts can only be obscured by our unbelief.  This morning he wakes with confrontation in his heart and begins two of the most strident days of his ministry.

Read Mark 11:11- 19

Choruses of “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” are echoing in the hills when Jesus curses a fruitless tree and cleanses a profaned Temple.  The crowds hoped Rome would reel from the blows of his iron scepter, now they learn that he was not what they expected.  Was the acclamation of the people not enough?

Read Psalm 69:7-13. A war of zeal has begun.  As Christ labors for the purity of the Temple his enemies strive for his destruction.

Today’s Prayer:

Oh, Christ whose passion cleansed the Church, unleash your zeal in the temple of my heart.  Crash its petty markets and overturn every pretense of empty adoration. Your zeal is my salvation.  Your passion is my glory.  Your holy anger is sweeter to me than the comfort of a thousand false prophets.  By your grace Lord, in your zeal Savior, make my heart your home and cleanse its courts to prepare them for my God. Amen.

Prompts for More Prayer

Pray for insight into the confusion or inner conflicts that keep you from bearing fruit and ask God to help you overcome them.

Pray that the Spirit of God would work through your faith to bear the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and truth.

Pray for the honor and courage of sharing your faith with a specific co-worker or neighbor.

Pray for your church’s ministries of discipleship and mercy. Ask God to bless the work of the church for the good of others.

Eight Days To Easter: Hail the King of Kings

  1. Eight Days to Easter
  2. Eight Days To Easter: Hail the King of Kings
  3. Eight Days To Easter: What Does He Want?
  4. Eight Days To Easter: Whose Side Is He On?
  5. Eight Days To Easter: Who Is On This Man’s Side?
  6. Eight Days To Easter: Who Loves like This?
  7. Eight Days To Easter: Whose King?
  8. Eight Days To Easter: What Now?
  9. Eight Days To Easter: What Have You Done With This Man?

Throughout his three years of ministry Jesus cautiously guarded his identity and mission, telling his disciples and the demons not to reveal who he was. Today he allows his glory and mission to be announced by thousands.  Jesus is forcing the nation and us to decide.  As soon as he lets “Hosanna” ring out, he claims he’s more than just a prophet.  Is he Son of David?  Is he the One who comes in the name of the Lord?

Sunday— Who Is This?

Read Matthew 21:1-11

Palm branches were strewn across the road into Jerusalem like so many decisions, fervently waved and casually discarded.  Was he, or wasn’t he?   Are you hiding from Christ behind the veil veneration or the myth of neutrality?

Read Psalm 2 and reflect on your allegiance to the King of Kings.

Today’s Prayer

Holy Son of David, you are my King.  You are King of Kings.  I surrender all that is mine to your throne.  I my heart, my strength, my mind, my soul, my all.  Oh Lord, though my sin wants to reign still, establish your throne in power and grace.  Take from me all that seeks its own dominion so your kingdom can rule my heart. For you alone are King of Kings. Amen

Prompts For More Prayer

Pray for the faith and humility to submit to God’s whole Word, especially those parts that strike your biggest fears and lusts.

Pray for the justice for the oppressed and mercy for the wounded.

Pray for the nations; that their rulers would rule righteously and for peace in the world.

Pray that God’s people would do his will on earth as it is done in heaven. Pray the Church’s mission here in Seattle and around the world.  world.

Eight Days to Easter

  1. Eight Days to Easter
  2. Eight Days To Easter: Hail the King of Kings
  3. Eight Days To Easter: What Does He Want?
  4. Eight Days To Easter: Whose Side Is He On?
  5. Eight Days To Easter: Who Is On This Man’s Side?
  6. Eight Days To Easter: Who Loves like This?
  7. Eight Days To Easter: Whose King?
  8. Eight Days To Easter: What Now?
  9. Eight Days To Easter: What Have You Done With This Man?

Eight Days to Easter is a daily devotional that follows the Savior into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, to the Cross on Good Friday, and then out the tomb on Easter.  You’ll receive an email every morning at 7:16 PDT (see the Gospel of Mark).  Each devotion has Scripture readings, a brief meditation, and prayers to help you answer the questions Holy Week asks.

Palm Sunday: Who is this?

Monday: What does he want?

Tuesday: Whose side is he on?

Wednesday: Who on his side?

Thursday: Who loves like this?

Friday: Whose King is he?

Saturday: What now?

Sunday: What have you done with this man?