Oh, What a Hero

Some quiet thoughts for Holy Week while the dough is rising...

Wondrous Love, art by my dear friend, Théa Rosenburg, Pevensie Prints

The yeast is proofing in the mixing bowl for challah bread that I will bring to tonight’s Maundy Thursday service at our church. I listen to the The Hero by Rachel Davis, a Canadian fiddler from Baddeck, Cape Breton. A fitting song for this Holy Week as our family and church celebrate the final days of Jesus before his crucifixion. As a Christian, a follower of Jesus, these days draw me into the most meaningful realities of our ancient faith. I sense the nearness of the Lord as followers around the earth are gathered to remember, to prepare, and to feast together on Easter Sunday. Christ’s death and resurrection are the most important moments for all humanity.

He is the hero of the story of the world. Each soul who has the opportunity to hear his name and his message needs to look inward at one’s broken, wounded, and sinsick heart, look down to read deeply these true historical accounts in the pages of the Bible, and look upward to the Lord Jesus who waits with open arms for all who will believe and receive His love, forgiveness, and reconciliation to God.

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Romans 3:21-26 ESV Bible

“You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool ... or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us.”

― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

My husband is at church preparing for the busiest weekend of our church year, the kids are enjoying their school day, and I’m quietly preparing for our family and church traditions, quiet prayers for those who are hurting, peaceful moments of gratitude for answered prayers in people’s lives, and some snatched moments of reading Pilgrim’s Progress as I listen to birdsong (and traffic) from our southern window. Dough rising, the cross candle set out for Good Friday, songs by my husband’s band cued for meditative listening, our annual lily plant to grace our Easter Sunday table, the plant that represents resurrection and new life, and all the chocolate eggs I’m going to hide for my teens and pre-teen for our family egg hunt on Saturday! Oh yes, they will go a-hunting for eggs! The cooking and baking, cleaning and decorating for our celebration is a communal event on Holy Saturday with even the toddlers grabbing a dust rag and wiping down pews before they do log-rolling races under them down toward front! The festivities begin Sunday with a bagpipe processional, harkening back to the Scottish roots of our presbyterian traditions. Oh what rejoicing in the victory of our Lord Jesus Christ!

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!

Oh sing Alleluia!

If you have not encountered the risen Christ, may you open your heart to Him today.
If you have rejected belief in the risen Christ, may you repent and turn to Him today.

If you have felt the sting of sin and despair of brokenness in this world, may you bow to His Majesty, Jesus the King, who…

“who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Hebrews 12:2, ESV Bible

Oh, what a Hero!