Leviticus 2:11
No leaven or honey was to be offered as a burnt offering. Why not? What happens to leaven or honey if it's burned? Does it not give off a "pleasing odor"?
Leviticus 3:16-17
All fat is the Lord's. No one was to eat any fat or any blood.
Matthew 26:6-13
Sometimes a gift to someone in need, especially one that us extravagant, is exactly what that person needs at the time. It is given freely, without a thought to the cost or efforts, or what could have been done that was more "reasonable". There is a need and it can be helped. This is what matters.
Matthew 26:30
What hymn did Jesus and the disciples sing at the end of the Last Supper?
Matthew 26:50
When Jesus addresses Judas, he calls him Friend. How incredible is that?
Matthew 26:52-54
Jesus makes a point that the will of God, the prophecies in the Scriptures, will not be completed or carried out with violence.
Matthew 27:19, 24-25
I wonder what this did to Pilate's marriage, and also what it did to his heart and soul, to go against the urging and pleads of his wife, as well as his own feelings, and hand over a righteous and innocent man to be crucified by an angry mob. How do you live with yourself after that?
Matthew 27:42
I wonder if Jesus was tempted to give them a little show when he was being crucified. Would they really have believed he was the Son of God if he had gotten down off of the cross?
Matthew 27:50
Jesus breathed his last; he gave up his spirit. Was he still waiting for the possibility of God doing something, o stepping in? Or was it that after God forsook him, that he finally had the sins of humanity upon him, and he could then die?
Today's ponderments:
How many times in my life will I have read the story of the crucifixion, hear it read, hear it preached on, or seen it in movies?
I have been hearing it as long as I can remember. Growing up as a child, the only scripture I ever remember reading as a family was the Christmas story, and the story of the crucifixion and resurrection on Jesus Christ. It is one of the most familiar scriptures to me, and one that I have always been able to visualize and imagine in great detail.
And it is also one that still fills me with awe and sorrow every time I hear it. I still, even as a 29-year-old seminary graduate, retain a child-like fascination and wonder when it comes to the crucifixion and resurrection. I am still baffled every time that Judas betrays Jesus, still hoping that Peter WON'T deny Jesus. I still want to yell at Pilate "You had a chance to stop this, all of this, with hardly any consequence on yourself, but you don't!!!! You go with the mob, release a murderer, and turn the Son of God over to people who wildly chanting for his brutal and public execution!!! What were you thinking???!!!"
And, without fail, I imagine myself in the story, holding fast to Mary Magdalene, tears streaming down my face as I watch my Lord and Savior being tortured, humiliated, and sentenced to death on a cross, all for my sins and the sins of humanity.
The crucifixion story is one that I have heard over and over. I could tell it with as much detail as any of the gospel accounts. And yet, it still affects me in my very soul, moving between grief and guilt and overwhelming gratitude at what Jesus, the Savior of the world, gave for me and for all.
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