Good Friday

Number 4 on my list of memorable sermons is....

    On Good Friday in 1980, my husband, John was going to sing a song for special music at Grace Lutheran Church in Erskine, MN.  While introducing his song, he spoke of what Jesus Christ went through on his way to the cross and what happened while he was hanging on the cross.  He shared every painful part of the events that led to the death and resurrection of our Lord and Savior.
    In an extremely thoughtful and provocative way he described those events so that for the first time in my life I truly understood the immense sacrifice that Jesus Christ gave for me.  By that time of my life I had heard and read about the Crucifixion many, many, many times,  The knowledge of it had not become old hat exactly, but the impact of it had dimmed.  I knew the story.  I knew the facts that are written in the Bible.  But, that day, like never before, I heard, saw, and felt what it must have been like!  I was forever changed.
    Many years later a movie called "The Passion of Christ"  was shown in theaters.  We watched the big screen and immersed ourselves in what producer Mel Gibson imagined The Passion to have been like.  As I watched it, the words of Isaiah 53:3-6  from the King James version ran through my head over and over.

    "He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
     Surely he has borne our grief, and carried our sorrows: yet we did not esteem him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.
     But he was wounded for our afflictions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
     All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all."

    I appreciated what the movie was trying to do; to help us see the sacrifice of Christ in a different way, but I did not need to watch it.  I had experienced it much more deeply all those years before through John's eloquent words taken directly from the Bible!
   
                                                      Have a good day!    Love, Sue