Jesus Breaks Bread Before His Death

Big Cross In Texas

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Blessed Easter!

Jesus and Self-Esteem

This morning as I drove to work in the early minutes prior to sunrise, I thought of Jesus. I wondered if Jesus ever regretted something he said or something he did. Immediately, I realized that the answer is 'of course not.'

Think about it: Jesus never felt remorse. He never said to himself, 'I wish I'd handled that differently; I wish I hadn't said that. I wish I hadn't felt or thought that.' He always felt, thought, said and acted perfectly. Every time. Every situation.

I think perfection is hard to imagine. So, think of this: Jesus had no pride. He was meek, gentle, humble. Yet, he also had perfect self-esteem. He never hated himself, never looked down upon himself or wondered why he was born. He always knew that he was of value. He never looked in a mirror and questioned himself. Yet, he also never looked in a mirror and said 'I am better than anyone else.' He never looked down on others. Instead he loved himself and others perfectly.

Jesus' Face Is Wiped

Jesus Nailed to the Cross

Jesus Falls Under Weight of the Cross

'Noli Me Tangere' by Fra Angelico

In 2006, two small paintings by the Italian Renaissance master Fra Angelico reemerged after 200 years. Missing since Napoleon's invasion of Italy, the mini masterpieces weren't found in a museum, a castle, or even an art thief's attic. They were found hanging in a spare room in the home of Ms. Jean Preston, a retired manuscript librarian in England.

Ms. Preston and her art-collecting father had acquired the paintings for a few hundred dollars in California in the 1960s (no word on how they got there). She had always thought they were special. When she discovered just how special, she was pleased to learn she had "a good eye."

Ms. Preston lived a modest life that ended in 2006. But this week, art experts and auctioneers revealed that her art collection was worth $8 million! The two Fra Angelico works alone fetched $3.4 million. (Yes, Ms. Preston owned other valuable art, too.) Both Fra Angelicos are now expected to head home to Italy, to Florence's famed Uffizi Gallery.

With that in mind, we want to know, who was Fra Angelico, this "Angelic Friar"? He was no bohemian. In fact, Pope John Paul II set Fra Angelico on the path to sainthood in 1982, beatifying him "because of the perfect integrity of his life and the almost divine beauty of the images he painted." Art historians tend to see him in a different perspective--as key to the development of Italian Renaissance forms and techniques.

DNA Sequencing and The New Creation in Christ

Speaking with a friend today at church, I mentioned that I have recently come to think that perhaps original sin resulted in a genetic alteration of humanity; and that at the moment of salvation, that genetic alteration is erased (or reversed) so that the person does indeed become 'a new creation' as Paul states in several of his epistles.

Then, later this afternoon, I wondered if with genome sequencing we might come to actually see this difference between Christians and non-Christians.

(I imagined this as I thought of Carl Sagan who in his book CONTACT has a character-scientist prove the existence of God by solving the unsolvable pi equation.)

If Christians have the DNA of Adam before he 'fell' (by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil), then what is Jesus' DNA composition since He is the only human being who lived on earth without sin? Is our DNA like Jesus'? If so, why do we still sin?

Paul says that the good he wants to do, he can not do. And begs to know who will rescue him from this body of sin and death? So, Christians' DNA must not be completely transformed by salvation. Rather, the transformation must be ongoing.

Paul implies this throughout his epistles. Our salvation is not perfection. Perfection comes through trials and persecutions which lead to endurance and persistence which eventually lead to holiness and perfection. Perfection which will finally be a new DNA code; the same DNA which Jesus' risen body holds.

So, we shouldn't wonder that we fail, that we continue in sin. We should keep on running for the prize, fixing our eyes on Jesus, who is the perfector of our faith and our goal.

Michael Ventura: "Panhandle Christs"

Panhandle Christs
BY MICHAEL VENTURA

On I-40 you drive past Groom, Texas, in seconds – a tiny town barely managing to be a town anymore, like many of its kind, clinging to the highway for dear life. Just west of Groom stands the second-highest cross in our hemisphere (there's one slightly larger in Illinois). Its massive, shiny metal glints in the sun, 19 stories high, visible for miles in that flat land. One may wonder whether something so large is a monument to faith or to unadmitted doubt, or some of both; but one may be sure that nothing so expensive is created in a county so poor without deep need. This is thunderstorm country. On many nights Groom's cross must be lit and struck by lightning like the lightning announcing Yahweh's presence in Exodus 19:16 – a light-show counterpointed quickly in 20:21, where Moses draws near "to the thick darkness where God was." The vast plains of the Texas Panhandle are an apt setting to depict the lights and darks of the divine.

Surrounding the Groom monument in a wide oval are refreshingly, earnestly human statues: the Stations of the Cross. Groom's Jesus is Anglo, not Palestinian, shorter than today's average height but taller than Jesus likely was. (The Gospels never suggest his appearance was unusual, so his height was likely average for the time, about five feet.) Groom's cross dwarfs us, but its statues silently convey what feels almost like an appeal: "See, we were much like you; it isn't so hard to understand our sins, our faith, and our sufferings, not if you look into yourselves."

Day and night there are always a dozen or so trucks and cars in the parking lot and people looking up at the high cross and, more accessibly, into the eyes of the statues...

The Mystery of His Will: Summing Up All Things in Christ

I am presently reading The Pillar New Testament Commentary on THE LETTER TO THE EPHESIANS by Peter T. O'Brien. Surprisingly, I had not considered that the mystery mentioned by Paul in Ephesians (and other letters) is God's plan to 'sum up all things in Christ.' This summing up of everything is indeed a mystery, hard to fathom.
O'Brien writes:

His 'mystery', though not understood by men and women, had been planned by him, the Creator, from eternity.

I couldn't agree more. God, in infinite wisdom, planned everything. Nothing is outside his foreknowledge.
O'Brien continues:

Before the foundation of the world he chose a people for himself in Christ and predestined them to be his children (Eph 1:4-5)...God has not changed; nor is he abandoning his first creation (i.e the Jews) by forming a new creation in Christ (i.e. Gentile Christians together with Jewish Christians). Salvation and the unity of the Jew and Gentile in Christ have always been his purpose...And he who created all things in the beginning with this goal in mind will consummate his work of re-creation on the final day when he brings all things together in unity in his Son, the Lord Jesus (1:10).

All things? I struggle sometimes with what Paul means when he writes 'all things'. At the end, will everything become as it was at the creation? Except that everything will know and be of Christ?
The mystery of his will is the summing up of all things in Christ.

Jesus Christ Carrying His Cross: Ace Jackalope (Photographer)

Mary, the Mother of Jesus Cries at His Feet

Another Angle of Jesus Christ Before Pilate

Pontius Pilate Washes His Hands of Jesus Christ

Mickey Wells: Stations of the Cross (Metal Statues of Jesus)

Icons

Christ Carries His Cross As Far As He Is Able: Metal Statues Near Amarillo, Texas

Christ Nailed to Cross: Metal Statues Near Amarillo, Texas