Jesus

As I wrote my new book, Introducing the New Testament, one thing became increasingly clear to me.   As I wrote about Jesus the man, Jesus the Jewish rabbi, and Jesus the Christ I realized that although we Christians revere Jesus as the Christ and learn to live our lives through the teaching of Jesus the rabbi, we sing songs like "Oh, How I Love Jesus" because of Jesus the man.  And that emotion is thoroughly rooted in Good Friday.

While Good Friday church attendance makes clear that most people would like to avoid the dark and horror of crucifixion and go straight to the Hallelujah's of Easter morning, we don't, in the end, love Jesus becaues he was resurrected.  We love Jesus because he died. 

John 20:1-9, 19-31; 1 Cor. 15:33-49

If you have been with us for the past few months, you know that this morning we arrive at the end of a long discussion of the Apostle's Creed. Line by line we have examined the teachings of the Christian faith and here, on Easter morning, we reach both the end of the Creed and the beginning of faith...the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.

TEXT: Luke 6:37-38; Romans 8:1-6

As we continue our travels through the Apostles' Creed, we come to a rather squirmy line: "From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead." Thinking about the judgment passages of Scripture is not an easy way to pass the morning, but I think we have made them much worse than they need to be. The doctrines surrounding God's judgment of the earth have been some of the most misused in Christian history, and unfortunately we don't have to go back very far in history to see that such abuse continues in modern culture.

TEXT: Luke 24:44-52; 1 Peter 3:18-22

The Pieta, by Michelangelo

TEXT: Matthew 27:27-31; Isaiah 53:1-9

TEXT: Matt. 3:13-17; 2 Sam. 7:11b-16