Wednesday musings

I am sitting in the Dentist office right now waiting for Nancy. I wanted to briefly talk about a conversation I had following my sermon last Sunday. A person came up to me and even though I did not preach on the prodigal son I briefly mentioned the story. In the story this person felt I was being too harsh on the older son because of his unwillingness to forgive his brother. He agreed that the unforgiveness was wrong but felt that the brother had been dutiful all of his life and needed to be cut a break.

What I did not say at the time was the context of this story was when Jesus was talking to the Pharisees when they criticized him for eating with sinners. The Pharisees stated that they were dutiful and followed the law of Moses. In the story, there is no doubt that the older brother was to be an example of the Pharisee attitude. the lesson is that we all have at different times been a Pharisee in our lives.

The journey of Lent

We have been studying the bible study by Adam Hamilton, "24 Hours that Changed the world." There have been some interesting insights as least for me from the study. Last Monday we discussed the trial, so to speak, before Pilate. Jesus was arrested and tried in secret by the Sanhedrin and brought to Pilate as they could not kill Jesus. One insight was that Jesus was not condemned by the sinners but by the righteous. Another insight and I dramatized it as we began was Pilate's unwillingness to do what was right and just. Instead he washed his hands of the blood that he condemned to torture and a cruel death of a man who was innocent of any crimes before the state or before God.
Adam, in his video, walks through Jerusalem to give us the feel of what the actual experience of Jesus might have been like. He stated that along the Via Del Rosa or the way of suffering that Jesus walked from Pilate to his crucifixion has the stations of the cross. Many of those stations come from scripture though there are some that come from tradition and are not found in scripture. He mentioned that there is a scriptural stations of the cross. Actually Pope John had taken the traditional stations of the cross and tied all of them to various scriptural basis from the old and new testaments. The more Protestant stations take the 14 stations and ties them to the gospel accounts.
I have come across those both in our Book of Worship and on line and plan to use those for our Good Friday services. I have found paintings, sculptures, and phots that I will be using for the visual as well as a video.
I believe that we need to continue to remember this time and where do we fit in this journey and the people that were present.