by John Bowering
Archive for the ‘Easter’ Category
In the Cross of Christ I Glory
Posted in Crucifixion, Easter, God, tagged Cross, Crucifixion, Easter, Jesus, Poetry on March 20, 2013|
In the cross of Christ I glory,
Towering o’er the wrecks of time;
All the light of sacred story
Gathers round its head sublime.
When the woes of life o’ertake me,
Hopes deceive and fears annoy,
Never shall the cross forsake me:
Lo! It glows with peace and joy.
When the sun of bliss is beaming
Light and love upon my way,
From the cross the radiance streaming
Adds more lustre to the day.
Bane and blessing, pain and pleasure,
By the cross are sanctified;
Peace is there that knows no measure,
Joys that through all time abide.
Hosanna
Posted in Bible, Easter, God, hymns, Jesus, Palm Sunday, worship, tagged Easter, Hosanna, Hymn, Hymns, Palm Sunday on March 13, 2013|
Hosanna, loud hosanna,The little children sang;
Through pillared court and temple
The lovely anthem rang.
To Jesus, who had blessed them,
Close folded to His breast,
The children sang their praises,
The simplest and the best. From Olivet they followed
Mid an exultant crowd,
The victor palm branch waving
And chanting clear and loud.
The Lord of earth and heaven
Rode on in lowly state
Nor scorned that little children
Should on His bidding wait. “Hosanna in the highest!”
That ancient song we sing,
For Christ is our Redeemer,
The Lord of heav’n our King.
Oh, may we ever praise Him
With heart and life and voice
And in His blissful presence
Eternally rejoice!
The Romans Road to Easter
Posted in Easter, Roman's Road, salvation on March 11, 2013|
Maybe you are like some and wonder why it was necessary that Jesus come and die for the sins of the world. Why would the world need such a strange thing as a man tortured, beaten and hung on a cross to die?
As a starting point, consider the law of God as He gave it to Moses in Exodus 20 (the Ten Commandments).
Of if 10 is too many, consider what Jesus later told his disciples, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:37-40
Whether you take the 10 or the 2, the bottom line is that God has a standard of holiness. That standard is given in His law. Keep it, and maintain fellowship with God; violate it in any point, and be forever separated from God by your sin.
This standard of holiness is not just for the Jew. “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23. There’s none righteous. Not one. Romans 3:11-18.
It doesn’t end there. “It is appointed for men to die once, but after this, the judgment.” Hebrews 9:24. The payment or wages that a man receives for his sin is death. Romans 6:23
But God, in His mercy, has provided a sacrifice, an offering that would satisfy the requirement of the law. That sacrifice was His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.
“God demonstrates His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8
“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” 2 Corinthians 5:21
“I am justified (made just as if I’d never sinned) through His (God’s) grace. Romans 3:24 “Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Romans 5:1
I had a great need. I have a great God. He gave me a great gift in the life, death and resurrection of His Son Jesus.
Hallelujah! What a Savior!
Were You There When They Crucified My Lord
Posted in Easter, hymns, tagged Easter, Hymns, Were you there when they crucified my Lord on March 10, 2013|
Were You There When They Crucified My Lord :
Were you there when they crucified my Lord ?
Were you there when they crucified my Lord ?
Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble
Were you there when they crucified my Lord ?
Were you there when they nailed him to the tree ?
Were you there when they nailed him to the tree ?Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble
Were you there when they nailed him to the tree ? Were you there when they pierced him in the side ?
Were you there when they pierced him in the side ?
Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble
Were you there when they pierced him in the side ? Were you there when they laid him in the tomb ?
Were you there when they laid him in the tomb ?
Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble
Were you there when they laid him in the tomb ?
Negro Spiritual
Finding Easter Part 2 – Who’s Jesus?
Posted in Easter, God, Jesus, tagged Easter, Implications of Easter, Jesus, Messiah on March 9, 2013|
It’s easy to get Jesus wrong. You could consider Him just a wise teacher, gentle prophet, or worse, a mere man. You could limit Him in your thinking to the 33 years of his life and try to hold His influence to those narrow boundaries.
But Jesus won’t stay in the small enclosure you built for Him. No, He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the great I Am, the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, He is the coming King and Messiah (the promised one) whose arrival is foretold by the Old Testament prophets.
Understanding the implications of Easter, requires an understanding of exactly who Jesus of Nazareth was and is. According to the gospel of John, He was in the beginning with God, co-equal to God, part of the trinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit).
So what was God doing living as a man in a remote village outside of Jerusalem in the first century A.D.?
God became man to solve man’s problem, because man was eternally separated from God by his sin, and the only way to change man’s future, so he could be in communion with God, was for a man to live a perfect life, fulfilling all the requirements of God’s law, and to then give up that perfect life in sacrificial offering for the sins of all the other men who lived and would live. That is what Jesus did for me, for you, for the whole world.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3:16
He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world. 1 John 2:2
When I Survey the Wondrous Cross
Posted in Crucifixion, Easter, God, hymns, Isaac Watts, tagged Cross, Easter, Hymns, Isaac Watts, poem, When I Survey the Wondrous Cross on March 6, 2013|
When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.
Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
Save in the death of Christ my God!
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to His blood.
See from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down!
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?
His dying crimson, like a robe,
Spreads o’er His body on the tree;
Then I am dead to all the globe,
And all the globe is dead to me.
Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.
By Isaac Watts, 1674-1748
Finding Easter
Posted in Easter, tagged Easter, Easter in the New Testament, Easter in the Old Testament on March 5, 2013|
Before Valentine’s Day was over, the eggs, bunnies and baby chicks were making their way to the store shelves. It is hard to find any of the true symbols of Easter in marketplace today. The significance of Easter for mankind seems all but forgotten amid the chocolate and marshmallow.
But close your eyes for a moment and stick your finger into any portion of your Bible, and wherever your finger lands you will see Easter, its foretelling, its revelation, its implications, and/or its denouement. Easter is what the whole book is about.
Skeptical? Consider the foretelling of Easter as found in Genesis, Leviticus, and Numbers.
The revelation of Easter, the events leading up, the capture of Jesus, the trials, the crucifixion and the glorious resurrection, is all described in eye-witness accounts in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
The implications of Easter and its denouement or final resolution are the subject of the next series of posts. Review the Biblical accounts of Easter to bring a fresh remembrance to the study.
Easter – What are we really celebrating?
Posted in Bible, Easter, New Testament, tagged Cross, Easter, Jesus, New Testament on April 4, 2012|
In preparation for Easter, consider what those who know acknowledge the God who hung on the cross and rose from the dead are celebrating:
Sacrificial death – re-established relationship with God (God’s righteous standard was satisfied)
- Hebrews 9:27 And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment.
- Leviticus 17:11 The life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.
- 2 Corinthians 5:21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
- Ephesians 2:13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
Payment for Sin
- Isaiah 53:12 He poured out His soul unto death, And He was numbered with the transgressors, And He bore the sin of many, And made intercession for the transgressors.
Victory over Death
- Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
- 1 Peter 1:3-4 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,4 to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you,
The Righteousness and Justice of God towards Men
- Romans 3:21-26 But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, 22 even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness
To Save a Thief
Posted in Bible, Crucifixion, Easter, New Testament, tagged Cross, Crucifixion, Easter, salvation, Thief on the cross on April 2, 2012|
Luke 23 recounts the story of Jesus hung on the cross between the two criminals, one on his right and the other on his left.
Then one of the criminals who was hanged blasphemed Him, saying, “If You are the Christ, save Yourself and us.”
But the other, answering, rebuked him, saying, “Do you not even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this Man has done nothing wrong.”
Then he said to Jesus, “Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.”
And Jesus said to him, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.” Luke 23:39-43
The thief’s relationship with God changed while he hung on the cross. The thief hanging on the other side never changed his position. We can only assume he will spend eternity separated from God in unspeakable torment and darkness.
One of the first fruits of Jesus’ crucifixion was the salvation of the one thief, a clear picture of God’s heart for the lost. He is never too busy with His “agenda” to save one lost soul. Even as He went to lay down His life to save all of humanity, He took time to save one wretched criminal even as his life was ebbing away.
Hallelujah! What a Savior!
Easter in Numbers?
Posted in Bible, Crucifixion, Easter, Old Testament, tagged Cross, Crucifixion, Easter, John 3, Numbers, Serpent on a pole on April 1, 2012|
Easter can surely be seen in Numbers, the 4th of the 5 books of the Pentateuch as the books of the law are often called.
Serpent on a pole
In Numbers 21, when the people had spoken against Moses and God, God sent fiery serpents among the people. The serpents bit the people and many died. When the Moses prayed for the LORD to have mercy on the people, God told Moses to make “a fiery serpent and put it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live.” It was just as God had said. God provided an antidote to save those who were otherwise doomed.
We know that this story speaks of the Son of Man because Jesus tells Nicodemus in John 3 “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” This time God was offering up His own son on a pole to save the lives of those who would believe.
The idea of a serpent on the pole being able to heal those who look on it seems too simple. It is the same with the cross. How simple is it? Jesus said that whoever believes in the Son of Man, will have eternal life. The cross was the way to get the attention of the lost and dying. “Look up here!” He said. “You can be saved!”
Jesus foretold his own death by crucifixion. In John 12, it is recorded that Jesus said, “If I am lifted up from the earth, [I] will draw all peoples to Myself.” It goes on to say in the verse following, just so no doubt is left in the reader’s mind, “This He said, signifying by what death He would die.”
Easter in Numbers.
Rooted and Grounded 