Tilling the Ground for Easter

My good buddy Chris Tilling delivered some lovely Good Friday meditations at Holy Trinity Brompton which are worth checking out. He's not just an English git, he actually can preach!

Good Friday from Holy Trinity Brompton on Vimeo.

HT: Michael Gorman.

Easter Mob Song in Beirut

Check this out, it is flipping awesome! I'm currently learning a bit of Arabic and it really is a beautiful language when sung like this.

HT: Trevin Wax.

Good Friday is Really Good!

Unlike the UK and USA, Good Friday is a public holiday in Australia -- and rightly so! Good Friday is good.

Here's a great vid for thinking about the cross.

After that check out Scot McKnight's reflection An Atoning Death.

And if you doubt the importance of the Christus Victor view of the atonement then go and sing a few lines from the hymn Christ Alone: "And as he stands in victory, sins curse has lost its grip on me!".

Happy Good Friday!

My Easter Reading

As I get ready for Easter, my readings will include:

N.T. Wright, The Challenge of Easter (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2010). See Google Books and this You.Tube video with Wright talking about the book.

D.A. Carson, Scandalous: The Cross and Resurrection of Jesus (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010), some good stuff in here, I've heard the sermon on the "Irony of the Cross" on three different continents!

N.T. Wright - Stop Trivializing Easter

Over at the Times Online, the good bish of Durham has an excellent article about Easter faith entitled, "The Church must stop Trivialising Easter".

Here's the final quote:

The world wants to hush up the real meaning of Easter. Death is the final weapon of the tyrant or, for that matter, the anarchist, and resurrection indicates that this weapon doesn't have the last word. When the Church begins to work with Easter energy on the twin tasks of justice and beauty, we may find that it can face down the sneers of sceptics, and speak once more of Jesus in a way that will be heard.

You have to love this stuff!

My Top Three Easter Sunday Songs

1. Don Francisco, "He's Alive", the Don is a brilliant story teller through song and this song is a classic itself.

2. Petra, "The Grave Robber", a great Christian band (for those of us old enough to remember), singing an excellent song on the resurrection of Christ and his grave emptying parousia.

3. Acappella, "Arise My Love", the chorus of this song is what I sing to my girls when I wake them up in the morning. This is my absolute favourite Easter sunday song. A good version is also sung by the group New Song.

He is risen, he is risen indeed!

That's My King!

Back in Australia I remember hearing a short and funky sermonette by S.M. Lockeridge that featured some hip-hip music in the background that was played on a Christian Radio station. Over at Between Two Worlds, the sermon is up with a you-tube clip to view.

Good Friday Reflection - Jesus Smells!

A week ago my colleague at HTC, Dr. Innes Visagie (a.k.a "the sausage man"), gave a wonderful homily on Eph. 5.1-2: "Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God" (NIV).

Sacrifices are frequently said provide a pleasing aroma to the Lord (e.g. Gen. 8.21; Exod. 29.18, 25, 41; Lev. 1.9, 13) and they avert his wrath, expiate sin, and effect reconciliation between the offender (us) and the offended party (God).

We experience salvation for one and only one reason: because Jesus smells! The scent of his death turns away the wrath of God against our sin, it is our passover sacrifice, Jesus is our substitute and representative because God smells the death of his son. But note the application here as well (and we can add 2 Cor. 2.14-16). We are to imitate God and love as Christ loved, which means we have to smell as well. Does your life smell as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God? Are you a "living sacrifice" (Rom. 12.1) and do you and your church offer "spiritual sacrifices" acceptable to God" (1 Pet. 2.5).

Smell ya later.

A blessed Easter to all!

John Dickson on Easter

John Dickson has some good, sober, and fair judgments about the history behind Easter at the Sydney Morning Herald.

HT: Michael Jensen

Good Friday Reflection

I have a sermon called Gospelizing 101 where I exposit Rom. 3.21-26. There I reflect on God's righteousness and the atonement and I also go into 1 Pet. 2.24 which says: "He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness". This lends itself to one of my favourite illustrations of the atonement:

During World War II, there was a group of Australian prisoners in a Japanese POW camp in South East Asia. One of the prisoners tried to escape in order to find some food. He was caught and sentenced to receive a flogging. His physical condition was so terrible that the beating would surely kill him. Knowing this, the chaplain of the camp offered to take the flogging in his place. The Japanese commandant was astounded by this as he had never understood Western morality and out of curiosity he gave permission for the chaplain to take the flogging. The chaplain was taken to a tree, stripped naken, tied up, and viscously flogged. The prisoner who tried to escape was forced to watch and he saw the Chaplain’s body being broken and bloodied by the whip as the chaplain was flogged until he lost consciousness and then flogged some more. Later he wrote in his diary, “It was at that moment that I finally understood the Bible when it says, ‘He himself bore our sins in his body when he hung upon the tree’.”.