Tagged with: easter devotional
Saturday: God in the Grave
| Sat Mar 26 '16
‘He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was punished. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence,...
Friday: Pierced for our Transgressions
| Fri Mar 25 '16
‘Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us...
Thursday: The Sheep and the Shepherd
| Thu Mar 24 '16
‘He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By oppression and...
Wednesday: Showdown in the Temple
| Wed Mar 23 '16
‘Listen! Your watchmen lift up their voices; together they shout for joy. When the Lord returns to Zion, they will see it with their own eyes. Burst into songs of joy together, you ruins of Jerusalem, for the Lord has...
Tuesday: Beautiful Feet
| Tue Mar 22 '16
‘How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, “Your God reigns!”‘ (Isaiah 52:7) If you were asked to suggest one...
Monday: Humble Beginnings
| Mon Mar 21 '16
‘Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to...
Saturday: Crying out for Rescue
| Sat Apr 4 '15
Easter Saturday: a day of many questions and few answers. It sits in the silence, suspended between the despair of Good Friday and the hope of Easter Sunday. Psalm 88 is a cry of anguish, which sums up the pain...
Friday: Four Ironies of the Cross
| Fri Apr 3 '15
Good Friday. Jesus has stood trial before Roman and religious leaders, fearful of his popularity and suspicious of his motives. Although there had been no grounds for Pilate to punish Jesus, the combination of fabricated evidence and pressure from the...
Thursday: Washing the Disciples’ Feet
| Thu Apr 2 '15
The Last Supper is an iconic part of Easter week. Sat in the upper room, Jesus celebrates the Passover with his disciples and reminds them of his imminent betrayal and death. He does this through instituting the sacrament of communion...
Wednesday: David’s Riddle
| Wed Apr 1 '15
Jesus was a master teacher. People came to him with questions designed to entrap him, and he deftly turned the questions on their heads in a way that exposed the true motives on his interlocutors. In Mark 12, Jesus has...
Tuesday: Taking up your Cross
| Tue Mar 31 '15
If you sit down and read Mark’s Gospel through there’s a watershed moment that it’s difficult to miss. The first eight chapters of Mark’s Gospel focus on Jesus’ ministry in and around Galilee in northern Israel. They’re filled with healings...
Monday: The Devil and the Details
| Mon Mar 30 '15
Right at the start of his ministry; before he’d begun preaching about the Kingdom (Matthew 4:12-17), calling people to follow him (v18-22) or healing the sick (v23-24); before news about him had spread through the nearby towns (v25); before Jesus...
Saturday: In the Tomb of a Rich Man
| Sat Apr 19 '14
‘Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders. With Pilate’s permission, he came and took the body away. He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who...
Friday: The Substitute Son
| Fri Apr 18 '14
Jesus stood on trial before the Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate. Having examined the evidence, Pilate had found no reason to condemn Jesus. And yet the cries of the crowd were demanding. So Pilate invoked an annual custom in an attempt...
Thursday: Who Killed Jesus?
| Thu Apr 17 '14
Who was responsible for Jesus’ arrest, his trial, and eventually his death? It’s not an easy question to answer, and its one that the gospels approach in various different ways. In one sense, it seems that the Romans had a...
Wednesday: Moving Mountains
| Wed Apr 16 '14
The Old Testament was packed with promises of God’s return to Israel and people were full of expectation of what that day would be like. Some passages spoke of God defeating enemies and rescuing His people (Zech 14:1-6, 16). Others...
Tuesday: Lessons from a Fig Tree
| Tue Apr 15 '14
It was the time of the Passover. Thousands of Jews had travelled to Jerusalem to celebrate the time in Israel’s history when God set them free from captivity in Egypt (Exodus 12). In the midst of the crowds, there was...
Monday: An Unintended Prophecy
| Mon Apr 14 '14
Jesus had received word that his friend Lazarus was ill, and by the time he arrived to visit, Lazarus had died. In John 11 we read the story of what happened next. Jesus spoke with Mary and Martha and explained...
Saturday: Dead Seed
| Sat Mar 30 '13
Easter Saturday is a dark day. It’s a day of questions and doubts. It sits in the silence, suspended between the despair of Good Friday and the hope of Easter Sunday. Just a few days before his crucifixion, Jesus spoke...
Friday: The Seed and the Serpent
| Fri Mar 29 '13
The Russian playwright Anton Chekov famously wrote: “If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be...
Thursday: A Tale of Two Fires
| Thu Mar 28 '13
On the evening Jesus was betrayed, he shared a meal with his disciples, and Peter declared his total allegiance to Jesus. Jesus replied ‘truly I tell you, before the rooster crows you will deny me three times’ (John 13:38). After...
Wednesday: Thieves in the Temple
| Wed Mar 27 '13
Right at the heart of Jerusalem stood the Temple, an enormous structure elevated on a mountain. It had taken 46 years to build, and its foundations covered nearly 1.5 million square feet. The temple was covered in gold, and the...
Tuesday: The Tenants and the Vineyard
| Tue Mar 26 '13
Stories are explosive. They have the potential to get under our defences and blow things apart. Jesus told a story just a few days before his execution; a highly-charged story that likely contributed to the calls for his arrest: ‘Jesus...
Monday: Preparing for Departure
| Mon Mar 25 '13
At various points throughout Jesus’ life, he spoke in hushed tones, and swore people to secrecy about his true identity. But in today’s passage, as Jesus’ ministry comes towards its climax, he takes just a few of his closest disciples...
Saturday: Waiting in the Silence
| Sat Apr 7 '12
Why do bad things happen and bad people get away with it? Where is God in times of darkness, silence and pain? The story of Easter Saturday explores some of these questions: ‘Do not fret because of those who are...
Friday: Adding Insult to Injury
| Fri Apr 6 '12
Betrayed, tried and wrongly condemned to death, Jesus is handed over to the soldiers to be brutally tortured and crucified. ‘The soldiers stripped Jesus and put a scarlet robe on him, and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set...
Thursday: The Garden of Tears
| Thu Apr 5 '12
In one of the most moving passages in all of Scripture, Jesus is pushed to the point of despair. The story of Gethsemane challenges us to be obedient to God, even in the toughest of times. ‘Then Jesus went with...
Wednesday: Three Meals to Change the World
| Wed Apr 4 '12
Are there areas of your life where you are in slavery, or lacking in hope? In today’s passage we see that Jesus promises freedom for captives and the promise of a new world. ‘Then came the day of Unleavened Bread...
Tuesday: What is Jesus Worth?
| Tue Apr 3 '12
If you had to put a price on Jesus’ value, what would it be? In today’s passage, Jesus, the most precious being ever to have existed, is humbled to the point of being sold for next to nothing. ‘Then one...
Monday: Return of the King
| Mon Apr 2 '12
Is Jesus King of your life? Are you fully submitted to him? The Easter story begins with a dramatic entry to Jerusalem, which proclaims Jesus as king and demands our allegiance: ‘As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and...
