(Argh! Wrote this once and lost all my work. We'll see if I can do it as well again.)

This bit of church history has always interested me. The early church was growing faster than they could handle it, a problem we would love to have. And the disciples make a remarkable statement...

On April 6 and 13 the first lesson is drawn from the 2nd chapter of Acts, the events of Pentecost, Peter's sermon and its response. I confess to being a bit puzzled, wondering why this lesson appears in the first few Sundays after Easter instead of waiting until after Pentecost. In the first selection Peter confronts the crowd with their guilt in Jesus' death and the promise of forgiveness, and 3.000 come to faith. In the 2nd selection we see the response of these new believers who devote themselves to learning and growing in faith together.

I have often said, "One sermon won't turn everything around."...

It's hard to keep our timeframe straight in the Sundays after Easter. This Sunday's Gospel lesson takes place still on Easter Sunday itself. Although we are 2 full weeks after Easter, these 2 disciples on their way to Emmaus are only a few hours from the first news of the resurrection. For us the Easter decorations are all put away and we're starting to shift our thoughts to summer vacation plans. But as these 2 men walked they were still very much overcome by Good Friday...

(I wrote a post for Saturday, but it didn't appear when I expected it. So here's another one. Perhaps we'll end up with two.)

It's very quiet at church today. I'm here to work on my Easter sermon, and I can't help but think about the disciples and the women who loved and followed Jesus on this day. Did they sleep that Friday night? Did they awaken on Saturday, the Sabbath, and go to the synagogue?...

A day of worship. A day of rest. A day on which Jesus' disciples would have met, perhaps at a synagogue, as was Jesus' regular practice. Would they want to talk or not? What would there be to say?

I often compare our lives to that Saturday. We can easily see the tragedy, the death or failure of things in our lives. Sickness is quite visible. And sin. But we cannot so easily see the Easter Sunday that hasn't yet arrived. Worse yet, we often cannot even see the Easter that we know has already come!

It's all over. The crowds are dispersing. All three of the criminals executed are dead now, their legs having been broken so that they died of suffocation, unable to lift themselves up to exhale. Except for one. They didn't break the legs of the one in the center. Evidently he was already dead when they came for him.

A couple of his friends are there now...

I'm writing this just before our noon hour service. It was at noon that Mark says the sun was darkened. It remained dark until 3pm.

Jesus was brought to Pilate at about 6am. The crowds filled the courtyard while Pilate examined Jesus. You're familiar with the scene. Pilate's attempts to release Jesus - his strategy for escaping the issue by sending Jesus to Herod - his effort to substitute Barabbas - and the final trap in which he found himself, crucify Jesus or face a riot and a possible delegation to Rome to call for his removal. Pilate surrendered Jesus, who was beaten severely and then marched to the cross...

Did you sleep well last night? Like the people of Jerusalem, when we arise in the morning we find that Jesus did not sleep at all.

After the supper with his disciples, they sang a hymn (probably Psalm 118) and left the city. They walked through the dark and quiet streets and out the city gate, across the valley and up the slopes of the Mount of Olives until they came to the Garden of the Oil Press, the Garden of Gethsemane. There Jesus prayed and prayed, while his disciples dozed and dozed...

We've already spent 6 weeks talking about each piece of the meal (in our Wednesday evening services). What about earlier?

Jesus awoke on Thursday morning. He knew he would not sleep again until his death on Friday afternoon. Arising and eating with his disciples, he gave them assignments for the day. Prepare for the Seder meal in the evening...

There is no record of anything Jesus did on Wednesday. After the busy events of Tuesday, the city would still be buzzing with conversation about all he had said and done. Jesus' enemies were probably posted at the gates, watching for him. Many people were wondering where he was, and what he would do next.

But Jesus waited. The Bible does not tell us, but I suspect that Jesus spent the day in prayer. When he had time available, the opportunity to get away from the press of healing and teaching, Jesus would usually go off somewhere quiet to pray.

Do you? In the middle of this busy week in your life, do you rest by taking an hour for prayer? Or do you rent a movie or read a novel? I confess I am much more likely to waste the time than to use it well. Oh, don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with movies and books and other ways of resting - but how much time do we spend in prayer?

Jesus was preparing for Thursday. While all his enemies are poised and waiting, while they are recruiting people to testify against him and arranging for their friends to be gathered for an early trial, to stage a near riot outside the governor's residence if they have a chance to bring Jesus to trial, while all of this is going on, Jesus is praying and waiting. Tomorrow his disciples will enter the city quietly to prepare the Seder meal in a secret place.

A lot happened on Tuesday, didn't it? Amidst all this, with the talk about the beauty of the Temple and about its destruction, the debates with Jesus' enemies, and so on, Jesus also told the story of the Ten Virgins. He used the illustration of the servants given different amounts of money to invest for the master who will soon return. He taught about the judgment, and about how the Lord would separate the sheep from the goats.

Apparently Jesus ended this busy Tuesday with a dinner at the home of "Simon the Leper." It was here that a woman poured an expensive perfume on Jesus' head. She was, as Jesus said, preparing his body for burial.

All this time an important meeting was being held among Jesus' enemies. They had often plotted to kill him, but had always been unable. The crowds that surround Jesus would cause a riot. But this time they have an advantage. Judas left the dinner at Simon's house and met with the Pharisees. "How much will you give me if I deliver him to you?"

(Matthew 21, Mark 11)

The withered fig tree serves as an illustration a second time, this time as they enter the city again on Tuesday and they find it dried up. It is a shadow of the events of the day ahead.

Jesus makes his way to the Temple once again, and today he is greeted by an official delegation, no doubt they were recruited the day before and given their assignment, and now they have been waiting for Jesus to show up. They represent all 3 of the ruling classes of Israel which made up the Sanhedrin, the priests, the scribes, and the elders. Surrounding Jesus, they ask him, "By what authority do you do these things?"...

(Matthew 21, Mark 11, Luke 19 - for the chronology of this week, I am relying on "The Life of Christ" by Adam Fahling, CPH 1936)

The Gospel writers do not break the events of each day into an hourly record. In fact, they blur things together at times so that it's hard to be sure which things happened on which days. The only way to make it clearer is to compare all 4 accounts carefully to find those places where the authors are quite specific. Matthew blends Sunday and Monday, making it sound as if Jesus cleared the Temple on Palm Sunday. But Mark (11:11) has greater detail. The events of Palm Sunday were so lengthy, the parade...

I know - you've read it before. "I've been really busy lately.... yada, yada, yada."

This week didn't work out too well, but I'll tell you what. Instead of writing about the Easter texts, next week I will *try* to write something EVERY morning, reflecting on each of the days of Holy Week.

I've always wanted to have a worship service every day of Holy Week, just to have the chance to think through the "trajectory" of the week, what that last 7 days was like for Jesus' disciples, but I've never tried it. (I don't want the discouragement that would come from spending a lot of time in preparation and then being in church with just 4 people.) But the blog provides a good opportunity because I won't be able to see that there are only a few people in "attendance."

We'll see how this goes together!

I've got a bone to pick with the ILCW. That's the InterLutheran Commission on Worship, they devised the current lectionary (modified a bit by our own church body) that is used by most Lutheran congregations. There are lots of lectionaries - lists of chosen Scriptures to be read on certain days. Did you know that?...

(Pardon me for not posting on these lessons earlier in the week. It has been a difficult week for a number of reasons.)

"Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus..." Wow, not asking a small thing, is he?

Of course, Paul is not asking us to give up as much as Jesus gave up. Jesus was "in very nature God"...

Prophecy is strange to us. In modern movies and books like the Harry Potter series a prophet goes into a trance, gets eerie, maybe starts to speak in a different voice (more like he is possessed than anything else) and then utters some obscure poetic reference. Prophecies are prose enough to clearly apply to a certain person, but poetic enough to be capable of misinterpretation (which, of course, is what makes the story exciting).

The "Servant Songs" in Isaiah....

I've preached on this chapter for numerous funerals. I've read it in who knows how many funeral homes and hospital rooms and by many death beds. I've focused on Jesus' deliberate delay when he knew that Lazarus was sick - and what that means for us when Jesus doesn't *seem* to hear our prayer. (Note that it says "Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus." And yet he delayed.)

I've talked about...

What can you do when you read these words... and they don't lift you up?

Over the years I have read these verses hundreds of times. I've pointed others to them time and time again. Following Paul's desperate cry in chapter 7, "Who will rescue me from this body of death?" they are are very powerful words. But the other day, in weariness and discouragement, I read these words and I groaned. "I don't feel like being encouraged. Just let me sulk here."...

"Dem bones... Dem dry bones..." The song doesn't do it justice. It's all bouncy and jivy, but I don't imagine this was a comical or hilarious scene. This was not just about dancing bones, or even just about the resurrection of these dead bodies. This was a field of war - the scene of carnage and destruction. And God changed it. What does this mean?...