maundy

When Jesus washed the feet of his disciples at the Last Supper he showed us his love, invited us into fellowship with him, and commanded us to extend that love to one another. 

How can we possibly see the story of Jesus with fresh eyes this Lenten season? In this week's episode Dr. Crystal Downing sits down to discuss Dorothy L. Sayers's play-cycle on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, The Man Born to Be King. Dr. Christine Colón (English Professor, Wheaton College) and Marjorie Mead (Associate Director, Marion E. Wade Center) unpack how Sayers used her skills as a playwright to help an entire generation of Britons rediscover this ancient yet still relevant story.

When he was a student at West Point, Brian Baker had a mystical experience.  During a sermon on Maundy Thursday, he found God.  Experiencing an intense feeling of love, the moment began his journey into the priesthood.  Now ordained as an Episcopal priest for almost 30 years, we talk about how Christianity led him to become an LGBTQIA rights activist, the state of love in the country, and his time at Burning Man. 

Additional Resources

• Brian's sermons:
  • Welcome Home
  • Religious AF
• www.deanbaker.org
• Brian on Facebook
• Brian's Burning Man Camp: Religious AF

At the Last Supper, Jesus gave us a new command. You might remember from earlier this week that Jesus quoted the Old Testament with He was asked what the greatest commandment was. Jesus is now in the upper room with his closest disciples and gives us all a new commandment. What is this new commandment? To love one another as Jesus loves us. As we enter Easter weekend, let’s remember how much Jesus gave for us because of His Love and show that same love for others that we encounter each and every day.

In our run-up to Easter, please join us in this week’s PODCAST as we follow Jesus step-by-step on this Virtual Israel Study Tour through the final hours of Jesus’ life.

Last week, we joined Peter in the seclusion of the Garden of Gethsemane. This week, we’ll meet again in the courtyard of the High Priest.

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God bless you richly as you listen.

We are just a few days away from Easter Sunday, and we are looking at a verse every day this week out of the last week of Jesus’s life here on earth. Today’s One Verse comes from the Last Supper. Jesus gives us a new command. You might remember from earlier this week that Jesus quoted the Old Testament with He was asked what the greatest commandment was. He was answering an “expert” in the law who was trying to trick Him. So Jesus quoted the Old Testament law to turn the tables on this expert. But today Jesus is in the upper room with his closest disciples and gives us all a new commandment. What is this new commandment that Jesus gives us? To love one another as Jesus has loved us. As we enter Easter weekend, let’s remember how much Jesus gave for us because of His Love and show that same love for others that we encounter each and every day.

The One Verse Devotional Bible study is provided by Phosphorus Project.

About the One Verse Devotional Podcast

One Verse is a short, free podcast devotional designed to help you grow closer to God through less than 5 minutes a day, 5 days a week.

Is it hard to find time to spend with God and grow your Christian faith? The One Verse Devotional is a short, 5 minute podcast where we grow deeper in our faith through just one verse a day, Monday through Friday. A practical and encouraging look at the Bible, now you can spend time with God whenever you want. Hosted by Matt McCarrick and brought to you by Phosphorus Project.

http://oneversepodcast.com/

Today we have a new commandment. Come listen to the sermon from the Maundy Thursday Service.

"The God of love is kneeling at our feet. Though we betray Him, though it is the night. He meets us here and loves us into light"…

Be fed. Be washed. Watch. Pray. You are God’s beloved.

Including the sonnet Maundy Thursday by Malcolm Guite, which may be found here: https://malcolmguite.wordpress.com/2017/04/13/holy-week-maundy-thursday-5/

To say that after “they” — to quote the Apostle John — “bound Jesus and brought Him first to Annas,” Jesus’ life would never be the same again would be a gross understatement and wholly inaccurate.

Fact is, as you are about to hear in this PODCAST, only some 15 hours after this cohort of some six hundred elite Roman soldiers led Him away in chains, Jesus’ life would be over.

The Roman leader principally responsible for Jesus’ execution? The Procurator Pontius Pilate, whom we will meet up close and personal next week.

The Jewish leader principally responsible for Jesus’ execution, whom we will meet this week? The High Priest Joseph Caiaphas.

You read that right. At this point in time, Caiaphas was — Listen! — the highest ranking religious leader throughout all the land, over all the people.

As High Priest, Caiaphas was the only person alive permitted behind the veil in Temple into the Holy of Holies, and that on only one day of the year — Day of Atonement. The Holy of Holies, where God’s manifest presence — His Shekinah Glory — literally, visibly flamed and flashed… But.Not.Anymore.

Trust me. God moved out of His house long before Caiaphas ever donned the robe and put on the vestments of his high-but-now-highly corrupt, once-holy-but-now-utterly-unholy office.

Caiaphas, an unspeakably unscrupulous man about whom we know much historically. And one whom — in an odd sort of way — I almost feel like I know personally. I say this for two reasons.

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God bless you richly as you listen.

Welcome to the Thursday of Jesus’ final week. As you are about to hear in this PODCAST, with these words, we are less than twenty-four hours from the crucifixion. Words wherein Jesus could just as well have said to Peter and John, “Go and prepare my final Passover meal together, so that we can eat it together.”

Jesus will on this Thursday evening celebrate with His disciples THE singular observance on the Jewish calendar, from time of Moses (Exodus 12) even to today. Indeed, as Rabbi Joseph Telushkin so succinctly stated in his classic work, Jewish Literacy, “Passover is the most widely observed Jewish holiday.”

But here’s the thing: Overshadowing this entire discussion tonight is this raw reality around which I cannot begin to wrap my mind: The centerpiece of Passover, of Jesus’ final Passover -- the Passover lamb -- has throughout redemptive history pictured one and only one person: Jesus, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. That person, Jesus, whose sacrifice in less than twenty-four hours would pay the penalty for the sin of world.

What emotions must have flooded Jesus’ mind, heart, and spirit… 

• As He led this His final Passover seder?
• As He Himself partook of the Passover lamb that symbolized everything that would happen to Him that very night into the very next day?
• The lamb that symbolized Jesus as the lamb of God?
• The blood that would symbolize His shed blood?
• The entire Passover story retold and in a sense
• reenacted in that Upper Room that celebrated the Israelites freedom from slavery to the Egyptians?
• That now symbolized our freedom from our slavery to sin, and from the punishment we all deserve?
  That punishment paid for by Jesus who is what Paul called “our Passover lamb” (1 Corinthians 5:7)?

All of this, and so much more, flooded like a tsunami of emotions Jesus sizable heart on this, the day Jesus told Peter and John, “Go and prepare the Passover meal, so we can eat it together.”

Preparing for this Passover meal, and every annual Passover meal, was and is #NoSmallThing. Given the enormity of the symbolism of every single aspect of a Passover celebration, preparation required effort and deliberation.

For our many Jewish friends, Jesus’ words to Peter and John, “Go and prepare the Passover meal,” involved much that we might easily miss. Consequently, in order to understand what took place in that Upper Room on this Thursday evening, we’ve got to hear Jesus’ words, “Go and prepare,” as Peter and John heard them.

So let me start with this...

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God bless you richly as you listen.

And now, the last two of the series of lenten dramatic readings.  The first is "2 covenants of the Kingdom", read by Pastor Bruce Rudolph, while the second is "1 atoning sacrifice".

1. 8 Souls in All
2. 7 Years of Famine
3. 6 Day until Sabbath
4. 5 Smooth Stones
5. 4 Large Jars
6. 3 Day and Nights in the Fish
7. 2 Covenants of the Kingdom
8. 1 Atoning Sacrifice

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