Easter, continued

April 1, 2013 by Gene Veith

After Jesus rose from the dead, He spent 40 days on earth. Then He ascended, and ten days later He sent the Holy Spirit. So Easter is a whole season, lasting 49 days until Pentecost (which means “fiftieth day”). So it’s still Easter, and I hope the joy of Christ’s resurrection continues with you.

What insights did you gain from the sermon you heard or other Easter observances?

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Pete
In our sermon, something was pointed out that hadn’t previously occurred to me: that Peter had denied Jesus three times, as Jesus had predicted. And then (John’s gospel) in His post-resurrection appearance to the disciples on the shore, Jesus asks Peter three times, “do you love me ?” Some symmetry and closure.
Orianna Laun
Both the seminary student who preached at the sunrise service and the pastor who preached at the festival service talked about “Where is Jesus?” They both had the same answer: here in Word and sacraments.
The devotion I read this morning talked of the high price of paying for our sins, namely, Jesus’ death. It got me to thinking how devaluing life can in turn devalue Jesus’ sacrifice. Not the value of Christ’s sacrifice itself, but how people think about it. It would be easy to say, “Yeah, my sins deserve death, kill that guy, it makes no difference to me.”
Justin
In the historic lectionary following the octave of Easter there are a lot of readings from John regarding the Helper. It connects Jesus giving up his Spirit on the Cross to the giving of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
Kathy
The only note I wrote down from yesterday, “Repentance is a relief, not a chore or something to dread.”
http://theoldadam.com/ the Old Adam
I like that one (about repentance).
kempin04
I chuckled a little at the irony of “the old Adam” liking repentance.
tODD
Pete (@1), but did your pastor explain the different words for “love” used in that dialog? It’s interesting.
The first two times, Jesus asks Peter if he “agapas” him. And the first two times, Peter replies yes, but he says that he “philos” Jesus (forgive me for mashing Greek and English together here). Finally, Jesus asks Peter if he (merely?) “philos” Jesus, and Peter again says yes.
So, yes, there is symmetry there, but Peter is still falling short, also. Again, interesting.
Joe
tODD – that is very interesting. Learned something new today. But, it is exactly these kinds of distinctions that make is so very necessary for pastors (and as many layman as possible) to learn the original languages.
tODD
Joe (@8), for what it’s worth, though I’d heard about this before, I used the tools at bible.cc to make sure I was correct before I wrote my comment (Here’s the interlinear version of John 21:15, for instance). Pretty useful, if you want to poke around in the Greek and, I don’t know, see what the original word was and where else it appears.
Pete
tODD @7
You know, he actually did point out the Greek distinctives although I don’t recall him echoing your point about Peter falling short yet again.
helen
Our Pastor on Friday night made the point that when we hear “Christ died for our sins” we think of things we have done wrong, but Christ died also for “our best intentions” i.e. our efforts to “do it for ourselves” when we can’t do anything to effect our salvation.
“God will bring us to heaven by first going to hell for us.”
From the chaplain with two tours in Iraq behind him: Physical death is not the hardest one. The hardest death is dying to ourselves daily and living to Christ daily.
http://www.facebook.com/mesamike Mike Westfall
Meanwhile, the sermon at the non-denom church our family attends was all about how some of us are stuck, Ground Hog Day-like, in the gloom of Friday, when we ought to move on into the joy ad glory of Sunday.
Sigh.