This week we continue to pause for a bit during this Lenten season to go beyond the words a bit for a better understanding of this time of suffering and sacrifice of our Lord that we might be forgiven of our sins.

The Stations of the Cross are a series of 14 stations that depict Jesus’s journey to his death and resurrection.  Broken down into 14 stations it helps us follow Jesus that fateful day after He had been turned over by Pilate to the soldiers for crucifixion. I will list at the end of this blog the complete list of the Stations. For today we will pause at three of those stations that have specific meanings. They are as follows:

• First Station: Jesus is wrongfully condemned to death  
• Third Station: Jesus falls under the weight of his cross  
• Eighth Station: Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem, who mourned for him as he carried his cross.

I will share from John Chapter 19 NLT version.

The First Station… It is plain from scripture that Pilate had a problem he would have gladly passed on to someone else but Roman Law would not allow this. The Jewish Leaders wanted Jesus dead for reasons that would fill another blog but to keep this simple, Jesus was a threat to their power and influence and authority over the Jews. They, the Jews, were pretty much able to rule themselves but there was no tolerance of disrespect to Caesar or Roman Law. To condemn Jesus to death…Kill him…Pilate must concur and order it…that was Roman Law. It can’t be said enough, here from …John 19:4-5 NLT…

4 Pilate went outside again and said to the people, “I am going to bring him out to you now, but understand clearly that I find him not guilty.” 5 Then Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. And Pilate said, “Look, here is the man!”

It was with fear and uncertainty that Pilate acceded to give Jesus over to the soldiers for crucifixion. Indeed Jesus was  wrongfully condemned to death.  

The Third Station…Jesus falls under the weight of his cross. After being handed over, Jesus was made to carry his own cross to the place of execution, Golgotha. Golgotha, which means “Place of a Skull” in Aramaic, was the location outside Jerusalem where Jesus was crucified. In the English language this place is referred to as Calvary. Oddly enough the journey from the Roman headquarters to outside the walls of Jerusalem gets only the briefest of factual mentions in Scripture (John 19:16-17).  6 Then Pilate turned Jesus over to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus away. 17 Carrying the cross by himself, he went to the place called Place of the Skull (in Hebrew, Golgotha). …The carrying of the cross is mentioned, without much detail, in all the canonical Gospels: Matthew 27:31–33, Mark 15:20–22, Luke 23:26–32 and John 19:16–18. Another odd note only John specifically says Jesus carried his cross, and all but John include Simon of Cyrene, who was recruited by the soldiers from the crowd to carry or help carry the cross. We must also note here that some writings record Jesus fell three times but the story of Jesus falling three times is not part of the biblical narrative of Jesus’s journey to Golgotha. John 19:17 reads that Jesus was made to carry his own cross…some other accounts say it was the crossbar…which ever, the fact remains that the crossbar alone would weigh around 70 to 90 pounds. His physical condition at this time was such that such weight was more than an ordinary man could endure…but this was The Christ, Son of God and he would endure. Indeed the sins of the world were heavy on his shoulders.

The Eighth Station: Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem, who mourned for him as he carried his cross. In some writings it is numbered as the ninth. 

For scripture reference here I use Luke 23:27-31 NLT…27 A large crowd trailed behind, including many grief-stricken women. 28 But Jesus turned and said to them, “Daughters of Jerusalem, don’t weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. 29 For the days are coming when they will say, ‘Fortunate indeed are the women who are childless, the wombs that have not borne a child and the breasts that have never nursed.’ 30 People will beg the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and plead with the hills, ‘Bury us.’ 31 For if these things are done when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?”…Jesus is in great pain and has suffered mightily at the hands of of the soldiers when he encountered the weeping women and some of His disciples on His way to crucifixion. It is obvious that His concern was not for Himself, but for the lives and souls of those who faced the danger of eternal damnation because of the sin in their lives. I take from this encounter the fact that many had gone into hiding and these few disciples and women were the core group of followers who although their world was uncertain at this time they were strong believers that here before them was indeed the Son of God. Jesus had said to all who would listen…“My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36), and as citizens of heaven, our focus and attention should be there. We must not let the sins and concerns of this world diminish our devotion and obedience to God.

The Stations of the Cross can be googled easily…here is the list I worked from…

Stations of the Cross [1] 

• First Station: Jesus is condemned to death 
• Second Station: Jesus carries his cross 
• Third Station: Jesus falls for the first time 
• Fourth Station: Jesus meets his mother 
• Fifth Station: Simon helps Jesus carry his cross 
• Sixth Station: Veronica wipes Jesus’s face 
• Seventh Station: Jesus falls for the second time 
• Eighth Station: Jesus speaks to the holy women 
• Ninth Station: Jesus falls for the third time 
• Tenth Station: Jesus is stripped of his garments 
• Eleventh Station: Jesus is nailed to the cross 
• Twelfth Station: Jesus dies on the cross 
• Thirteenth Station: Jesus is taken down from the cross 
• Fourteenth Station: Jesus is laid in the sepulcher 

Life is Good

jk

Had a conversation with a guy the other day and brought it with me tonight to the Porch. He talked about how he thought time passed quicker as we got older. Well I thought that a decent topic for a good ponder! Ever since I ended up in this wheelchair I have become more and more aware of that old saying “how time flies by.” Takes longer to do things now and while I have always been time conscious, I have now become obsessed with it. I know that It takes me thirty to forty minutes in the morning to get cleaned up and dressed and into my chair. It takes me thirty more minutes or so if I shave that day…because I have opted to shave my head also. People have said shaving my head makes me look old. I am soon to be 82… so ponder me this…why would they say that? I have a tool that helps me put my socks on because it saves time…No, I can’t bend over in my chair because my stomach is in the way and I can’t get to my foot. I also don’t mind sharing that my personal bathroom time takes longer… There is no longer the last minute dash to answer the call in my life anymore. Time is a critical factor…how can I say this? Time is important in being able to assume the proper position. The Taco Bell Dash is no longer a part of my life anymore. I know it takes about 20 minutes to get to church so I have a time set in concrete that we must leave at in order to get a prime spot to unload my chair. It is universally agreed that there are 60 minutes in an hour and as I get older I believe somewhere along the way I lost some minutes…an hour goes faster. I no longer tell my wife when she calls me to eat, “I will be right there”…she still operates on normal time, well it is wife time and it is different then men’s time even without the chair factor. I have learned that as the Bible says  there is a time for everything, so Ponder This…Time is Precious… Use it wisely.

jk

We continue this week to pause a moment throughout this  season of Lent to go beyond the words and look at the places that are a part of Christ’s journey to the Cross.  Just a quick search gives me 24 places to look at. But on this day I picked out three. Nazareth, Bethany and Gethsemane. I start with… Nazareth because that was His “boyhood home”,  (Luke 4:16). Jesus was often referred to as “Jesus of Nazareth”. In Bible times people were often identified by their native area or place of residence. The man who carried Jesus’ cross was called Simon of Cyrene, noting his name and his place of residence. After having fled to Egypt to protect Jesus from Herod, Joseph returned and settled his family in Nazareth. When we read Isaiah 53; and Psalm 22 most commentaries read that Jesus the coming Messiah would be of humble origin and would be despised and rejected. I am going to skip over some of the discussions had by some commentators and just make note of the fact that when… note that the following is taken directly from gotquestions.com  …. Matthew says, therefore, that the prophecies were “fulfilled,” his meaning is that the predictions of the prophets that the Messiah would be of a low and despised condition and would be rejected, were fully accomplished in His being an inhabitant of Nazareth. It was here that a major event in Jesus’ life occurs. As an adult, He returns to Nazareth and at the synagogue He confesses to be the fulfillment of the prophet Isaiah’s words, Luke 4:1819…18 “The Spirt of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, (19) to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” …

To those in the synagogue that day he also said … “but I tell you the truth, no prophet is accepted in his own hometown.”(Luke 4:24)   

 Bethany, located on the eastern side of Mount of Olives, was the hometown of Mary, Martha and Lazarus, close friends of Jesus. Jesus visited there often and when Lazarus died he was raised from the dead by Jesus (John 11:1-45). Bethany was not that far from Jerusalem and it is here that everyone got to see Jesus’ divine power as the Son of God, as Lazarus raised up by Jesus. But something else happened here that is often not mentioned. The biblical phrase “Jesus wept”…John 11:35  is the shortest verse in the Bible, occurring in the context of Jesus’s arrival in Bethany after the death of his friend Lazarus, where he wept with Mary and Martha over their grief. The humanity of our Lord was there for all to see. One last note before we move on to Gethsemane. Bethany is also the place from where Jesus ascended into Heaven. 

Garden of Gethsemane   One way for us to better visualize the location of the Garden and its close proximity to Jerusalem is to consider this…It is just across the street there.  Gethsemane literally means “oil press,” the garden is located on a slope of the Mount of Olives just across the Kidron Valley from Jerusalem. Don’t be misled by the name Kidron Valley it is not that expansive. A garden of ancient olive trees stands there to this day. As written in John 18:2, Jesus went there often with the disciples to pray. The garden was where on the night before His crucifixion Jesus was betrayed. There are four accounts of this in scriptures, Matthew 26:36-56, Mark 14:32-52, Luke 22:40-53 and John 18:1-11)  reading these will give an accurate picture of that night in full. What happened that night in the Garden of Gethsemane have traveled through the centuries. We often refer to it as the Passion of Christ… There have been books, music and movies made of that event in that garden and are the prequel to cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Thank you for being in “The Pew” this week, please come back.

Life is Good

jk

Welcome to the Back Porch… bit windy here on the plateau today but since moving here I can say it is the  only place I have lived for any time where the wind blows every day, that would be Amarillo Texas. Consider this…Spam, not the unsolicited electronic messages and such, not that, but the kind that comes in a can! The name being a combination  of “spice and ham”…thus Spam. Most folks  do not visualize the can thing. I always have a few cans of Spam in the pantry along with some cans of Vienna Sausages. Now about that Spam…Hormel Foods claims this phenom and with pride. What exactly is it? It is a blend of pork shoulder, ham, salt, water, potato starch, sugar, and sodium nitrite (a preservative). It is not on your list of healthy foods… it contains twice as much of the daily dietary recommendation of fat as it does of protein, and what about the health effects of salt and preservatives. Why hasn’t it been kicked down the road? It showed up in 1937. Made its mark as an easily prepared food, lunch meat and such but could be found on many tables during the lean times of the depression. There are a lot of things about spam most of us don’t know and most would ask “who cares.”  After World War II, more than 100 million pounds of SPAM were consumed by Allied soldiers. Ponder on this…Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev credited SPAM with saving the Russian army during the war. By 1959 over one billion cans of the product had been sold a figure that climbed to eight billion by 2012, the last year for which Hormel published sales figures. One more little thing…can you believe the company opened a museum devoted to the meat product at its corporate headquarters in Austin, Minnesota, in 1991…well best you believe. Todays Ponder is very simple…Why is that?

Jk

The Easter Story like the Christmas Story are known by most Christians and I would venture by many of those who are not of the faith also. I would also venture to say on the surface it is familiar ground for most peoples. But what do we know about the ground it covered? There is a bit of advice that is given to public speakers that goes like this… “know the room it will help you share your message.” Or the advice of book publishers, “it helps to know what you are writing about.” Consider this… to really understand the richness of the biblical writings and appreciate the Saints that carried forth the message of God and His son Jesus Christ “knowing the lay of the land will enhance your study.” So let’s get to know the lay of the land. First of all… it was not the most hospitable place to be as far as terrain was concerned. Palestine during the time of Jesus was part of the Roman Empire and was governed by Herod the Great. The Jewish people were subject to Roman law and customs, and there was tension between the two groups. Add to that the tension between the two groups among themselves and it gets a bit treacherous. Three very distinct facts about the area that Jesus would have walked in, the ground under his feet,  which I sometimes refer to it as the way to the cross. Adjust your sandals and let’s take a walk.

(1) Political situation: Palestine was part of the Roman province of Syria and it was divided into ten regions, Herod the Great was a “client king” of Rome, he was an ally of Rome who was allowed to rule in exchange for loyalty andstability and after Herod died, his kingdom was divided into five parts. Pontius Pilate was the Roman governor of Palestine from AD 26 to 36.(2)situation:   The Sadducees were the political elite of Palestine, consisting of wealthy and influential Jewish aristocrats. The social institutions of Palestine included family, politics, and the economy. (3)Other thoughts: The Roman Emperor was called Caesar. The Roman Senate gave Herod the title “King of the Jews” and Roman imperial policy required Palestine to be loyal and peaceful.

 The Bible describes the historical situation in Palestine and is the most reliable source for the information we have today about the ground Jesus walked on.

Note: I have at the end of this blog listed my sources for this information.

For the next few weeks The Pew will attempt to go beyond the words in an attempt to get a feel of the land and challenges Jesus faced on the way to the Cross. I hope you will join us here in the pew.

Life is Good 

jk      

Sources

 [1] https://www.loc.gov/item/2009579463/

[2] https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jesus/Jewish-Palestine-at-the-time-of-Jesus

[3] https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/ea/public/reresources/uploads/sites/2110/2016/02/Palestine-Religion-and-Romans.pdf

[4] https://www.thebiblejourney.org/biblejourney1/1-the-world-of-the-new-testament-journeys-b/the-rulers-of-palestine/

[5] https://study.com/academy/lesson/early-critics-of-christ-pharisees-and-sadducees.html

[6] https://www.logos.com/product/15711/palestine-in-the-time-of-jesus-social-structures-and-social-conflicts

[7] https://www.amazon.com/Palestine-Time-Jesus-Structures-Conflicts/dp/0800663098

Welcome…Pull up a chair, box or if it is all that is available…what God gave you to sit on. Got a good Ponder to work on. Weather is great and it is a good time to be outside. The games we used to play. Kids growing up in these times have a need to be entertained due to a lack of imagination. Ok, you have heard it before but in my younger years we always found ways to play and engage in activities, boys and girls…we learned early to fellowship if you don’t mind my using that word. Technologies had not advanced far enough to enable us to entertain ourselves. If we go back as far as the 1930’s most of our parents could not afford to by us manufactured toys, leaving most of us to make our own, share with others things like, hoops, marbles and skipping ropes. As time moved on and I know I might be repeating myself a bit, children played traditional games like tag, hide and seek, marbles, and hopscotch. Sports such as soccer, baseball, and cricket were also popular. Kids also often spent time exploring their surroundings, climbing trees, or playing in fields and woods. At school our playgrounds were rife with action packed games, Red Rover Come Over, Tag, Red Light and I am sure you know some I did not list. Now Ponder This… We made our own rules passed down to us over the years, enforced and policed ourselves…and yes it is true that every now and then we didn’t do a very good job and the best of intentions were carried out by a few of us rolling around on ground or in the gravel. I miss seeing the kids being kids. Ponder  This…   No one got shot, or cut up. Again Ponder This…Why?

Kurt

Do you ever ask why someone does something? Are you ever curious about why you do certain things? One area we all do things that are different than others…but same among many would be Church. To the non-christian or un-believer the next 43 days of the church calendar are one of those…they do what? Those who ask “WHY DO THEY DO THAT?…well at least they wonder why, we …most Christians just do it by rote, it becomes a habit, just something we do as part of our heritage. I kinda compare our behavior to that of what we do when we read the Bible. I use the term surface read which means not every thing stays with us. I include myself in this observation of humanities efforts to embrace the faith…we tend to miss the big picture. Join us in The Pew as we take some time to look at the liturgical calendar…Whaaat? A liturgical calendar is a cycle of seasons and feast days that guides the prayers and liturgies of some but not all mainline churches. It’s also known as the church year, Christian year, or ecclesiastical calendar.  The liturgical calendar was primarily observed by Catholics, but also by many Lutherans, United Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and Anglicans. Note most Methodists follow the liturgical calendar, and some use the Revised Common Lectionary. The liturgical calendar is an annual schedule that commemorates certain days and seasons related to the history of salvation. I may have been a bit repetitive but that brings us to the first three of these dates on the calendar. We will list them in order.

Shrove Tuesday is a Christian holy day that marks the beginning of Lent, a 40-day period of fasting and penance leading up to Easter. Shrove Tuesday is also known as Pancake Day. Number one on my list is Confession,  Shrove Tuesday is a day to confess sins. We need to talk more about Repentance in our churches these days. It is also the day many of us will allow a little indulgence before the season starts, more about that in a moment. It is a big pancake day because they use ingredients that people gave up for Lent, like eggs, flour, and milk. Now about that indulgence thing. Mardi Gras In France, Shrove Tuesday is called Mardi Gras, which means “Fat Tuesday” which you can do right here state side…in good ole New Orleans. The second on our list would be  Ash Wednesday…Ash Wednesday is a Christian holy day that marks the beginning of Lent, a 46-day period of penitence and preparation for Easter. It’s a day of prayer, fasting, and repentance and usually occurs on March 5. Christians receive ashes on their foreheads as a sign of repentance and human mortality and the  Ashes are made from burning palm leaves from the previous year’s Palm Sunday. Most all churches in many of the Christian denominations will have services on this day. In Old Testament times, people used ashes as a sign of repentance by sitting in them, rolling around in them, or sprinkling them on their heads. For our part here they are used to place the mark of the cross on our forehead. The third on our list would be Lent which Christians celebrate to remember Jesus’s 40 days of fasting and preparation in the wilderness before his public ministry. Lent is a time of self-denial, prayer, and penance that leads up to Easter. We should use this time to reflect on our behavior and consider how to live by Jesus’s teachings. We also should use this time to prepare for Easter by studying the Bible and giving up something we enjoy, such as food, drink, or smoking, as a test of self-discipline. It is also a time we should mourn Jesus’s suffering on the cross. Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and ends on Easter Eve.

Life Is Good 

jk

Rough on the Porch Today…So much so I have retreated to the office, any port in a storm. I created the Back Porch to be a place where I could ponder some things, keeping it simple and have a venue where I am free to kinda cater to my preferences. The Porch is open to anyone and their opinion. There is one caveat that while not a rule is really something of great importance… civility… in words and attitude is expected… no room on the Porch for  ideologues…Ok to ponder the motivation but important to remember that pondering does not include condemning or dismissing others opinion. Having said that…allow me to offer this ponder.

How did we get this point in our Government? After the President’s speech last night, I was left with a profound sense of disappointment that reason and hope can prevail at the table and all we really can expect is more of this agenda driven behavior from both sides of the aisle. I will admit that one side was past disappointing and more toward disgusting. I am not going to let this become a rant of my personal disappointment but just an honest ponder point… Why, how did we get to this point? One group sat stone faced and belligerent and displayed a 4D attitude  that recked of, Dissatisfaction, Disconnected from reality, Disrespect of their soundings and Disobedient to established protocol all only serving to feed their Hate of anything that stood in the way of their agenda. Those of us that watch the speech…which was the longest by any President other than Bill Clinton… saw a vision of America that was and wants to be again…in sharp contrast to what it has been and is right now. SOooo…

Ponder This…Which do you prefer?

jk

Time is a great motivator of change but some habits never change, one being dissent which is a definite motivator of disagreement. The life of a prophet was not an easy one, the hardships and danger were ever present. We must not overlook the truth that God in his mercy sent the ultimate prophet, His son Jesus Christ, as the means of reconciliation and salvation for all God’s creation. WE are living in a world of divisive dissent of many different forces. The Church is under constant pressure to conform to standards and behavior that are not in any way the will of God. Jesus came among us to bring the light of hope and salvation to a suffering world. It is important to note that Jesus, Son of God came to be among us in the flesh…God incarnate and like us He too would suffer the tribulations of this world and be susceptible to its injustices. There was much opposition to the early church, both from within and without from people, groups and the Roman Government. They tell us, that at the time of Jesus’ ministry there was this thing known as The Pax Romana. The Pax Romana, or “Roman Peace”, was a period of peace and prosperity in the Roman Empire that lasted from 27 BC to 180 AD. This time period included the life of Jesus and the early years of Christianity. More on that some other time. So…one of our Lord’s dissenters, was the Roman Government even in this time of the “Roman Peace”. There are two others which we will look at today.

The Pharisees were a Jewish group that followed a strict interpretation of the law and believed in oral tradition. They were active in Palestine during the Second Temple period, from 515 BCE to 70 CE. The Pharisees challenged Jesus in many ways, including questioning his authority, testing his knowledge of the law, and criticizing his actions. 

They were jealous of Jesus’ popularity with the people and they did not like his associations with people of questionable behaviors. In Matthew 12, the Pharisees criticized Jesus for allowing his disciples to work on the Sabbath. They were insistent about asking Jesus about the law…Jewish and Roman law, hoping to trap him into something that could be used against him. They even at one time tried to lay hands on him after he had taught the Parable of the Wicked Tenants… Luke 20:1. They had no success in questioning Jesus’ authority, knowledge or trying to find fault with his ministry. But within the structure of Jewish tradition and law there was another group whose actions could be described as a form of dissent.The Sadducees were a Jewish sect of priests and aristocrats who were active in Judea from the second century BCE until the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. They were a conservative group that held power in the Jewish community. These were the political elite of Palestine during the time of Jesus. They were were active in the daily activity of the Temple in Jerusalem and had a working relationship with their local Roman counterparts and they were  dominate in the Temple and the priesthood. They were rivals  of the  Pharisees who opposed their power. The Pharisees first concern was for a greater recognition of the oral Torah. In the end  they did not secure a lasting legacy. The Sadducees as a group ceased to exist after the destruction of Jerusalem, but the Pharisees’ legacy lived on. In fact, the Pharisees were responsible for the compilation of the Mishnah, an important document with reference to the continuation of Judaism beyond the destruction of the temple. In this way the Pharisees laid the groundwork for modern-day Rabbinic Judaism. Because the Sadducees were often more concerned with politics than religion, they ignored Jesus until they began to fear He might bring unwanted Roman attention and upset the status quo. It was at that point that the Sadducees and Pharisees set aside their differences, united, and conspired to put Christ to death.  (gotquestions.com)

Paul used the differences between the two groups to kinda “stay in the game” so to speak. Let’s wrap this up. Jesus had to contend with many things in his ministry but one thing I ran across that I offer for your consideration. The twelve disciples were with him right up until he was arrested, then even they fled or hid in the shadows, one even denying he knew him. Jealousy, fear of losing power and prestige among the people or the Roman Rule or law being challenged, all put Jesus in great danger. Almost forgot… a disciple means follower, eventually the 12 would be known as Apostles. Jesus had many followers, people followed him everywhere…I would dare to call it a “traveling evangelical event”.

Life is Good

Jk