Do you ever People watch? At the mall, at events, in crowds? What kinds
of people make an impression on you when you are just sitting on the bench? I
now notice mothers with little babies that remind me of Julie and Allison and
my grandkids.
Today we are going to move into the Easter season and we are going to
do a kind of people watching where we can only see and hear a brief glimpse of
what happened. We are going to hear a few sound bites as we go through the
story, but probably not enough to get the full picture. Even though we won’t
have the complete story, we will get enough to help us start thinking about how
we react to the cross.
Based on Joy Beyond Agony
The People of the Cross
By Jane Roach
5 Groups: Passers by, Two criminals, The soldiers, The religious
Leaders, His followers
Passers by
What were these passersby expecting? Why
do you think they came to the crucifixion?
Jewish Religious Leaders
Why were these men so interested
in proving that Jesus was not the Son of God?
The Soldiers
How could these men possibly have their
mind on this tunic?
Criminals
This short
exchange gives us some amazing truth about salvation. Faith alone in Christ
alone brings salvation. One of the criminals reacted to the cross by confessing
his faith in Jesus ability to save him. How
did the other criminal react?
His followers
I can’t
imagine how Mary (Jesus mother) felt. John was close enough to hear Jesus
speak.
How close
do you think Mary and John were to the cross? 5 feet, 10 feet, right next to
it?
What does
the passage say about how John reacted?
Reactions
to the cross, at the cross were all over the board. If you had been nearby and
seen it, I wonder how you would have reacted. But let’s move out of people
watching mode at the cross and into the present. Today, in the next few weeks,
you will see people all around you responding to Easter.
What
do you expect to see in the next 2 weeks leading up to Easter?
What we see
is largely external. What God sees is what is on the inside. Some of the things
we talked about this morning were external (casting lots) and some of the
things we saw were eternal (the thief’s salvation). Some of the responses, such
as those by the passersby may have been done without any understanding of what
was really happening.
I’d like
for us to think about our response to the cross this Easter season. For us,
Jesus crucifixion is not an event that lasted a few hours, but the most
significant event in all human history. We know what His death means for us. We
know all about his sinless life and how He gave it to pay the price for our
sins.
I want us
to take just a moment of silence and react to the cross. Let’s see how the
cross impacts our lives, and respond to it in your heart as you think Jesus
wants you to respond.
No comments:
Post a Comment