Tag Archives: Good Friday

Faithful Fridays: 3-25-16 Good Friday

Posted on by under Pastor Wrinkles

Faithful Fridays is one of seven weekly posts at Lillie-Put which facilitate a culture of worship.

Today is Good Friday. the day we remember the atoning sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.

Who has believed our message
    and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
    and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
    nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by mankind,
    a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
    he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

4 Surely he took up our pain
    and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
    stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
    he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
    and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
    each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
    the iniquity of us all.

7 He was oppressed and afflicted,
    yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
    and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
    so he did not open his mouth.
8 By oppression[a] and judgment he was taken away.
    Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
    for the transgression of my people he was punished.[b]
9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
    and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
    nor was any deceit in his mouth.

10 Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
    and though the Lord makes[c] his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
    and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
11 After he has suffered,
    he will see the light of life[d] and be satisfied[e];
by his knowledge[f] my righteous servant will justify many,
    and he will bear their iniquities. Isaiah 53

Share your own Good Friday song in the comments section.

Find out more about Fernando Ortega, the artist singing this song HERE 

 

Lament For A Dying World

Posted on by under Pastor Wrinkles, Uncategorized

crying eye      In my mind’s eye I am standing once again in my grandfather’s kitchen delivering him the news about my grandmother’s terminal cancer. His watery blue eyes fill with tears but he sets his jaw with that grim New England resolution I have grown up with.

He lifts his chin proudly refusing to let the tears escape, “Well we have had 61 wonderful years together.”

Despite his assertions of thankfulness I know something in my grandfather dies that day. That is the point he loses the will to live. That is the moment where life becomes a rash clinging to his mortal skin, a plague to be cured so he can rejoin my grandmother on the other side.

In this world one out of one dies.  Death is ever-present in the midst of life. As Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15 it is the final enemy, man’s nemesis. Because of this plague on the world we all know lament and raise it up from one end of the globe to another on a daily basis. Somewhere right now someone is weeping over some soul cast forth from the Earth into eternity on this day we call Good Friday.

I can see a hill with three crosses. Two criminals hang beside him, one  to his right and one to his left and there on the middle cross, struggling for every breath, hangs the Darling of Heaven, God with skin on, Jesus.

He gasps one last time and cries out “Into Your hands I commit my Spirit.”

Immortality meets finality. The whole world laments. The clouds weep darkness and the earth trembles in terror as God dies. But in this world it is a rule as certain as death, God changes everything He touches. And when He touches death it is changed from enemy to entryway for those who believe on the Lord Jesus to be rescued.   

     For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16

     For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. John 3:17

    But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: John 1:12     

In my memory I am sitting at my grandmother’s side as she prepares to breathe her last. I sing her to Heaven with her favorite hymns, “In the Garden” and “How Great Thou Art”. It is 4:30 A.M. and the hospital smells of antiseptic as death creeps in to take her. But because of the cross death can do no more than release her from cancer’s shackles. Because of the cross 61 years of happy marriage are not forever marred because of death’s pall. Because of the cross my grandfather can hope in a better future even as his own life wanes alongside hers.

We can raise a lament for this dying world. It is sad. Today is a day to recognize the awful power of this enemy called death. But it is also a day to recognize that long ago on a hill called Golgotha God and death had a showdown and there in that time and space God’s touch forever made a slave of this thing that enslaved us. Jesus died on Friday but hang on church Sunday’s on the way!

Pray with me today:

     Jesus I thank you for Your cross. I thank you that You met death and won! I thank You that Your power has turned death from an enemy into an entryway. I believe in You Jesus and receive Your death on the cross as my access into Heaven. I know I could never do enough good works to enter Heaven on my own but You have made a way by dying for me by taking the punishment for my sin. I love You Lord and dedicate my life to You this day. Amen.