The Big Lies (Good Friday sermon)
Wednesday night I met with the youth group. I had invited them to ask me any question on their minds, anything at all. I was somewhat surprised that most of their questions were about the Bible. It was fun.
The question that took me the longest time to answer was, “What is your favorite book of the Bible?” How do you pick a favorite? After a few minutes of serious contemplation, I decided it has to be John’s Gospel. My reasons include its incredible prologue, “In the beginning was the Word…”, his most detailed account of the Resurrection and the ways that he shows who Jesus is and what he means to God’s people and the creation as a whole.
One of my favorite moments in John’s Gospel is the exchange between Jesus and Pilate when Pilate asks Jesus, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”
Then comes the kicker. Pilate asked him, “What is truth?”
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A Servant Lesson
Come, join with me, let us join the disciples as they enter the upper room for their Passover meal, this meal would also be the last with Jesus before He went to the cross. Jesus was the only one in the crowd that knew it.
Let’s imagine that evening, let’s imagine what was probably on the minds of Jesus’ disciples. I’m guessing that their first thought was who would sit where? Perhaps, even pushing and bumping each other out of the way to get the preferred seat. Who would be in the “honored” seats?
They all knew where Jesus would be reclining, the 2nd seat on the left side. The seat of the host. The question on their minds was, who would be sitting in the most honored guest’s seat on Jesus’ right and then who would be the second honored seat on his left? Does this seem a little familiar? How times have you wondered where you might be seated at a wedding reception? How many of you remember arguing with brothers or sisters about who called “shotgun first?” I kind of liked sitting in the middle in the pickup. Thereby avoiding opening or closing the gate. The shotgun seat had its privileges, opening the gate wasn’t one of them! Still, everyone scrambled for the chosen seat.
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The Terrible Cure
One Sunday I went home feeling great about the services that morning. The hymns and offertory music were beautiful and on point. The readers read well. The prayers were earnest. Attendance was strong and the sermon seemed to have hit home well. It was a very blessed day. After almost everyone had left, I went to my office to take care a few things before heading home. But there was trouble. A nasty computer virus had entered my computer.
Viruses are bad, but this one really scared me because the message said: Infected registry. That’s really bad. Here’s why. Everything we do with a computer, all the programs and documents, are in the operating system. The registry is all the stuff your computer does right when you turn it on, before your home screen even pops up.
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