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When God Seems Absent: A Silent Saturday Reflection

Published by V John on April 4, 2026

Today marks the final day of the Lenten journey — Holy Saturday, often called Silent Saturday — a day of rest and preparation for the Resurrection. And yet, for all its weight, nobody quite knows what to do with it.

Good Friday has its gravity—the cross, the darkness, the cry of dereliction. Easter has its trumpets. But the day in between just sits there, quiet and strange. The altars are bare. There is no Eucharist, no alleluias. In the old liturgical rhythm, not even a candle is lit. It is the one day of the Church year when the world is simply asked to wait—and waiting, as most of us know, is its own kind of suffering.

Jesus’ disciples certainly found it so. They scattered. They hid. Whatever they had hoped Jesus was, it seemed finished.

But the oldest Christian confession dares to say otherwise. The Apostles’ Creed, in its spare and careful language, declares that after His death, Christ “descended into hell.” Certain Christians anchor this in specific texts, such as, 1 Peter 3:18–20, Ephesians 4:8–9, Acts 2:27, and Matthew 12:40.

However, the original Latin word is inferos, meaning the realm of the dead. The Greek and Hebrew terms, Hades and Sheol, also mean the common realm where human souls go when they leave the body. Therefore, in the Creed, “hell” is not the place of final punishment, but the realm of the dead—the place every human goes. Christ went there because He went everywhere humans go. Jesus did not sidestep death or hover above it. He entered it—all the way in, just as He entered everything else about our condition.

What happened there is where different Christian traditions diverge—and they do so honestly. Eastern Orthodox have long treasured an icon of Christ standing on the splintered gates of Hades, reaching down to pull Adam and Eve out of the dark—a picture of Easter that begins before the stone ever rolls away. Medieval theologians spoke of the righteous dead, the patriarchs and prophets, finally receiving what they had only seen from a distance. Calvin argued the “descent” was not a journey at all but the depth of spiritual suffering Christ endured on the cross—the hell He absorbed so we would not have to bear it. Still other scholars read 1 Peter 3 as Christ declaring His victory to fallen spiritual powers — a proclamation not of mercy but of conquest.

The honest answer is that Scripture leaves this in partial shadow. And perhaps that is fitting. Holy Saturday is, by its nature, the day we cannot fully see into.

What we can say is this: the silence was not emptiness. Wherever Christ was on that Saturday, He was not a victim waiting to be rescued. He was moving through death with the same intention He brought to everything—purposeful, sovereign, undefeated even in the grave.

That matters for more than theology. Most of us know what it is to live in a Saturday season—after something has broken, before anything has been restored. The prayer that hasn’t been answered. The diagnosis that changed everything. The relationship that ended without resolution. The long, grinding wait when Friday’s wound is still fresh and Sunday feels like a rumor.

Holy/ Silent Saturday does not offer cheap comfort. It does not rush you toward the resurrection or tell you to cheer up. What it offers is something stranger—and more solid—than that: the assurance that Christ has already been into the darkest place you’re facing. He didn’t send a message from outside it. He went in. He holds, as He told John, the keys of death and Hades. He didn’t borrow them. He took them.

So, sit in the stillness today if you need to. Name the things that feel sealed and cold. And remember—the silence outside the tomb was not the silence of a story ending. It was the silence before a door flew open from the inside.
He is already there.
The stone will move.

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Paid in Full: What Jesus Finished on the Cross

Published by V John on April 3, 2026

On Good Friday, churches traditionally reflect on the seven “words” of Christ from the cross. While we cannot know exactly how many times Jesus spoke or the precise sequence of his final moments, the Gospel writers have preserved these seven declarations for us. In the churches I have served, it is customary to invite laypeople to speak on these words during the service. Every time I assign them, I face a familiar challenge: everyone has a favorite.

I suspect you do, too. Perhaps it is “Father, forgive them” or “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” But my favorite — the one that haunts and comforts me most — is the final declaration found only in John’s Gospel: “It is finished.”

“When Jesus had received the wine, he said, ‘It is finished.’ Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit” (John 19:30).

In the original Greek, this phrase is “tetelestai.” The root word, teleo, means “to accomplish,” “finish,” “end,” or “to bring to its intended goal.” Thus, tetelestai carries the weight of “consummated,” “completed,” or “paid in full.” In the first century, this term was stamped on business receipts to indicate a debt had been settled completely.

To me, these three words are among the most profound Jesus ever spoke. No one has ever spoken words richer with spiritual and theological meaning. Their depth is staggering; no human mind can fully fathom the totality of what Jesus meant in that final breath. Yet this declaration stands as the culmination of all human effort to please God and the zenith of God’s work for our salvation.

In this single Greek word tetelestai, the scope of redemption expands infinitely. God’s purpose for the world is fully actualized. Every prophetic utterance of the holy men and women of old finds its “yes” in Christ. All of Jesus’ claims and “I am” statements are confirmed. The long-held aspirations of humanity through the ages are realized. Forgiveness of sins is no longer a hope but a completed reality. The healing of nations and individuals is secured — “by his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). The triumph over every enemy is achieved, with death itself as the final foe to be destroyed (1 Corinthians 15:26). And the final redemption of humanity is accomplished (John 3:16).

The list could go on, but the point remains: it is finished. The work is done. The debt is paid.

This is not just a historical event; it is a present reality. We are invited to stop striving and start resting in this accomplishment. Let us not only receive this truth personally but also share it with those who do not yet know the power of a finished work.

. . .

Reflection: Which of these truths do you need to cling to most today? How does the knowledge that the work of your salvation is finished change the way you approach your struggles?

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When the Answer to Your Prayer Is No: Finding God in Your Gethsemane

Published by V John on April 2, 2026

Cappella 22: Gesu’ Sveglia i Discepoli Dormienti‎, Sacro Monte di Varallo Sesia, Piedmont, Italy. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Varallo_Sesia,*Sacro_Monte*–*Chapel_22*-_Jesus_Awakens_the_Sleeping_Disciples_001.jpg

Our reading for Maundy Thursday is Mark 14:32–42. The warmth and memory of the Upper Room were behind Jesus now. The bread, the wine, the final words of love spoken over his closest friends — all of it faded as Jesus stepped into the cold darkness of the garden of Gethsemane. With the city asleep and the shadows deep, the Son of God faced the loneliest moment in human history.
He brought his three closest disciples — Peter, James, and John — and asked one thing of them: “Remain here, and keep awake” (Mark 14: 36). But they slept. In his hour of greatest need, the people he loved most could not stay awake. Jesus was left to wrestle alone.
And wrestle he did. The Gospel writers search for words to describe what happened next in Gethsemane, and even their most powerful language falls short in conveying what he went through. He was “distressed and agitated,” “grieved and agitated,” “greatly distressed and troubled,” “deeply distressed and horrified,” “sore amazed, and to be very heavy,” “deeply grieved,” “exceedingly sorrowful, even to death.”
This was not mild anxiety. This was a soul bearing the full weight of human sin, facing a cross no human heart was ever designed to carry.
And so he prayed — not with polished theological language, but with raw, desperate honesty: “Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me” (Mark 14:36).
This is one of the most important prayers in all of Scripture, because Jesus shows us something we often forget: authentic prayer is not the absence of fear. It is the presence of honesty. He did not pretend or perform. He brought his deepest fears directly to the Father, and he asked — plainly, urgently — for another way.
The Father did not remove the cup. Yet he did not leave his Son alone either. An angel appeared to strengthen him. And here is the truth that changes everything: the Father’s “No” to escape was a “Yes” to endurance. God did not take away the suffering — he gave Jesus the strength to walk through it.
And then came the pivot point of all history: “yet not what I want but what you want.”
In His sufferings, Jesus did not bypass his humanity — he walked through it completely. He surrendered his will to the Father’s, trusting that the path of suffering was not the end of the story. This is why, three days later, the garden of agony became the garden of resurrection.
Perhaps you are in your own Gethsemane right now. A diagnosis. A broken relationship. A door that will not open no matter how hard you knock. You have prayed — sincerely, repeatedly — and the answer feels like silence, or worse, a quiet and resolute “No.”
Bring it to the Father anyway. Ask honestly. Ask urgently, as Jesus did. And if the cup does not pass, if healing does not happen, trust that the same God who strengthened his Son in the garden will strengthen you. Your pain is not a sign that God has abandoned you. It is the very place where he meets you.
And remember the sleeping disciples. When someone you love is in their Gethsemane, do not fall asleep on them. Stay present. Sit in the dark with them. Sometimes the most Christlike thing we can do is simply refuse to leave our friends.

What is the cup you are afraid to drink today? Can you bring it — honestly, without pretending — to the Father, and ask him not just to remove it, but to give you the strength to face it?

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The Temple Courtyard Was Full of Noise, But Empty of Prayer

Published by V John on April 1, 2026

Enrique Simonet, Public domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Simonet_-_expulsion_mercaderes.jpg

In Mark 11: 15-19 we read that as Jesus rode into Jerusalem for Passover; the city buzzed with anticipation. Families were scrubbing their homes, removing every crumb of yeast in honor of their liberation from Egypt. It was a season of intense spiritual preparation. Yet when Jesus entered the Temple — the one place where God’s presence was meant to dwell — he found something deeply troubling.

Instead of sanctity and sincere prayer, the air was thick with the bleating of lambs, the clinking of coins, and the smell of animals. The Court of the Gentiles — the only space in the entire Temple complex where non-Jews could come to seek God — had been transformed into a bustling marketplace. This was not merely a case of greed hiding behind religion. The deeper wound that troubled Jesus was exclusion.

By design, this outer court was meant to be a sanctuary for “foreigners coming from a distant land, so that all the peoples of the earth may know God’s name” (2 Chronicles 6:32–33). But the religious leaders had turned it into a religious flea market. The noise of commerce had drowned out the whispers of prayer, and the very people the prophets promised (Isaiah 56:7) God would gather had been excluded.

Jesus responded with righteous indignation. He drove out the animals with a whip, overturned the tables, and declared: “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers” (Mark 11:17). He was not angry at the need for sacrifice or currency exchange. He was furious that the system had become a barrier — that the religious elite had built a wall where a door should have been.

This story forces us to look honestly at our own temples — our sanctuaries, our denominations, our theologies, our churches, and our communities.

We don’t need to sell doves or lambs to block people from God today. We do it by making our spaces so program-heavy and internally focused that there is no room left for the seeker. We do it when our budgets, buildings, and business efficiency matter more than the mission of God. We do it whenever the outsider — the skeptic, the refugee, the broken, the one who doesn’t look or think like us, those who do not fit our mold — feels unwelcome or unheard.

In cleansing the temple, Jesus proclaimed that he came not just to fix a building, but to restore access to God. And ultimately, he pointed to himself as the true Temple. On the cross, the veil was torn and the barrier destroyed forever: “He is our peace; in his flesh he has broken down the dividing wall, the hostility between us” (Ephesians 2:14).

Today, Jesus invites us to let him search our beliefs, hearts and our churches — to clear out the noise of self-importance and make room again for the outsider.

Who is the “Gentile” or the “other” in your life right now—the person who feels on the outside looking in? How can you make space for them to pray, to be heard, and to belong?

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Rejected Every Day — He Kept Loving Anyway

Published by V John on March 31, 2026

Most of us picture Jesus’ suffering as concentrated into two defining moments — the forty days of temptation in the wilderness, and the final agonizing hours on the cross. But a closer reading of the Gospels reveals something more painful and more personal: rejection was not an exception in Jesus’ life. It was the atmosphere he breathed, from the very beginning to the very end.

It started at birth. Before he could walk or speak, he was already unwanted — a refugee infant carried by desperate parents into a foreign land, fleeing a king who wanted him dead. He grew up displaced, returning to Galilee as a stranger in his own homeland. And it never really got easier.

In Mark 10: 13-16, his own disciples — the men he had personally chosen and poured himself into — tried to turn children away from him. Not strangers. Not enemies. His closest friends from Galilee! Jesus was so troubled by this that the text says he was “indignant.” The very people entrusted with his message were the ones most likely to miss its point.

On the road to Jerusalem, an entire Samaritan village rejected him and didn’t want to have anything with Jesus. His disciples, James and John, were furious and asked Jesus to call down fire from heaven on the village. Jesus rebuked them. Not because he lacked the power, but because his mission was never destruction — it was always redemption.

And then there was Judas. A man who had sat at his table, heard his teaching, and witnessed his miracles — who sold him for the price of a common slave.

So how did Jesus survive it — not just the cross, but a lifetime of rejection?

His identity was not built on the approval of people. It was anchored in something no one could take from him — the voice of the Father, who had spoken over him at his baptism: “You are my beloved Son.” When the crowds called him a drunkard, a madman, demon-possessed, he did not crumble. He knew who he was because the Father had already said so.

And because his identity was secure, rejection could not control his behavior. He didn’t lash out at the disciples who kept getting it wrong. He didn’t curse the village that turned him away. He didn’t become bitter toward Judas. He absorbed the pain — and responded with love anyway.

This is where the story becomes personal.

Most of us handle rejection by building walls, going quiet, or nursing a wound until it hardens into bitterness. Jesus invites us into something harder and more beautiful: to love the people who have hurt us, not because they deserve it, but because we have been loved the same way.

He was rejected so that you could be accepted. He carried the world’s hostility so you would not have to carry it alone.

Who is the person in your life right now who has rejected you? Who is your Samaritan? Who is your Judas? What would it look like today — not someday, but today — to choose love instead of bitterness, trusting that your worth is secured not by their opinion, but by what God the Father thinks and says about you.

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The Cost of Grace: Reimagining the Other

Published by V John on March 30, 2026

In Luke 7:36–50, an unnamed woman — unwanted, uninvited, and labeled a “sinner” — crashes a dinner party hosted by Simon, a self-righteous Pharisee. To understand just how radical this encounter is, we need to step into its cultural context.

In first-century Judea, dinner guests reclined on cushions around a low platform, feet stretched out behind them. Such gatherings were semi-public, meaning outsiders could slip in and observe. This woman seized that opportunity. She entered a space where she did not belong, carrying one of her most precious possessions — an alabaster flask of expensive perfume.

She did not approach Jesus with a demand, but with a desperation that transcended social shame. Standing behind him, she wept, bathing his feet with her tears, drying them with her hair, kissing them, and anointing them with the perfume. The text does not specify the nature of her sin — only that she was known as a sinner. Yet in the presence of Jesus, deep conviction and remorse poured out of her in tears.

Simon watched in scandalized silence. His objection was not merely personal disgust but a theological crisis: a true prophet, he reasoned, would never allow a ritually unclean person to touch him. In Simon’s worldview, holiness meant keeping the “dirty” at a safe distance.

Jesus dismantled this logic — not with anger, but with a parable. He described two debtors, one forgiven a great debt and one a small one, and asked Simon which would love more. Simon answered correctly: the one forgiven most. That was precisely the point. The woman’s extravagant act was not a payment to earn Jesus’ favor — it was the inevitable overflow of a heart that understood how much she had been released from. She loved much because she had been forgiven much. Simon, who felt he owed little, loved little.

Jesus was teaching something that overturned the religious logic of his day: true holiness is not about avoiding contamination. It is about the power to transform. He did not shrink from her presence — he embraced it, and declared, “Your sins are forgiven. Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”

This story confronts us on two fronts.

First, where are we like the woman? Have we been labeled, rejected, or told we are too far gone? This story declares that no amount of shame is greater than his grace. We can approach him exactly as we are.

Second — and more uncomfortably — where are we like Simon? Do we prioritize correct behavior over compassionate engagement? Do we quietly want Jesus to join us in condemning the “other,” people different from us whom we have already written off? Jesus does not call the righteous. He calls sinners. And in doing so, he invites us to stop judging the broken and start loving them — risking our own reputations to extend the same grace we so desperately need ourselves.

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Christmas not so Merry and Bright?: God in Christ Comes to Us in our Messiness

Christmas not so Merry and Bright?: God in Christ Comes to Us in our Messiness

Published by V John on December 24, 2022

If your Christmas is not merry and bright, if it’s blue instead of red, or if it’s lonely instead of a joyful family; just know that it’s absolutely fine. There’s nothing wrong with you or with your Christmas.

The birth of Jesus Christ had nothing to do with such things in the world that He was born and lived in. Instead, the Scriptures show us it was stark and bleak, though not without a ray of hope. Even after the birth, Jesus and his folks had to deal with constant dangers and foreboding, as a refugee family on the run, crossing risky borders while authorities demanded papers and they had none to show.

The Bible talks about a Jesus who comes into the world of violence, fear, misery, poverty, colonization, and injustice. It is in this world that He came naked, homeless, and as one for whom there was no room in anyone’s house or heart. Jesus’ early life was lived as a vulnerable refugee in Egypt at the mercy of strangers who took his family in and provided for them during their sojourn there. Therefore, Jesus Christ can come to you today in your own vulnerabilities and needs and in your lonely space of a godforsaken mess. It was made possible not because of the manger or the cradle but through His cross. May we run to the Cross and find forgiveness, love, mercy, and comfort in whatever situation you find yourself in this Christmas in 2022 on in the new year.

Maranatha!

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Lenten Reflections 2021: Return to the Lord!

Published by V John on February 18, 2021

Rev. Dr. Vinod John @johnvinod | February 18, 2021

I would invite you today to read again the tiny book of Joel in one sitting as it has only three chapters. The message of the book of Joel is never passé. In fact, Joel’s message has relevance for the whole world today more than ever no matter where you live. It is expressly because Joel’s context and ours are quite similar today. In Joel’s time, Israel went through a devastating plague—an invasion of devouring locusts. They had eaten and destroyed everything in their way and turned the green pastures of Israel to desolate. The food supply was almost destroyed, and people were crying out for help.

 “The seed is rotten under their clods, the garners are laid desolate, the barns are broken down; for the corn is withered.
 How do the beasts groan!
 the herds of cattle are perplexed, because they have no pasture; yea, the flocks of sheep are made desolate” (Joel 1: 18 KJV).

Moreover, the liturgical worship of God in the Temple was also adversely affected to the extent that its daily offerings had almost diminished:

 “The grain offering and the drink offering are cut off from the house of the Lord. The priests mourn, the ministers of the Lord” …
 “Put on sackcloth and lament, you priests; wail, you ministers of the altar.
Come, pass the night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God!
Grain offering and drink offering are withheld from the house of your God” (Joel 1: 9; 13 NRSV)

We are in the second year of an unprecedented and deadly pandemic since 2020 and there seems to be no end in site, despite the new vaccines that might help prevent Covid-19 infections. The world economies are faltering and will remain unstable in the aftermath of this pandemic. Therefore, I think we need to heed prophet Joel’s timely call to repentance. While prophesying in the context of a dreadful plague of locusts that affected all aspects of their life, including the religious worship, Joel pleads with Israel to return to the Lord. He preaches a message of hope. He reveals the nature and intent of God, that is not to destroy the people of Israel but to save them. If they repented of their disobedience and returned from their evil ways to the living God, Joel promises that God would pity them and restore them. Joel also reveals that in a post repentance and restoration era, God would bring about a new reality, that is, the Spirit of God abiding with them (see, Joel 2: 28-29). We shall ponder on this aspect in the coming days along with Joel’s apocalyptic predictions.

However, today, let us shift our focus from the death, loss, and destruction brought about by the pandemic that we find ourselves in and instead let us focus upon the areas in our lives that need amending. What specific areas in our personal and church life do we need to do penitence? What are the specific areas in which we need to turn back from disobedience to obedience? May the Lord help us locate these areas and let us return to the Lord seeking His grace and forgiveness for our Creator God is merciful and will restore us.

In our churches, what we loved the most—our in-person corporate worship and fellowship—have been curtailed by this evil pandemic. However, let us use this time to reflect upon our church life and its sins, disobedience, and complicity. How has our church been doing in the midst of racism, sexism, bigotry, sectarianism, favoritism, ethnocentricity, preferentialism, xenophobia, discrimination, immorality, dogmatism, celebrity worship, false saviors, and several other areas that this Lent season may reveal to us? Perhaps, you do not see this visibly in your church, but has your church been apathetic to these issues and their presence in and around the church? If so, may we heed the call of Joel who called the Temple priests, too, to repentance:

"Put on sackcloth and lament, you priests; wail, you ministers of the altar.
Come, pass the night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God!" (Joel 1:13 NRSV).
“Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare thy people, O Lord, …” (Joel 2: 17 KJV).

For a paperback, please contact vinod@vinodjohn.com

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New Year, New Resolutions, and the Old You!

Published by V John on January 2, 2015

Even if a little late, I wish you all a very happy New Year!

I am grateful to the Lord for ushering me and you into this brand near 2015 and I wish and pray that this year turns out to be a great, joyous, and blessed year for you. Like most people, I am pretty sure you too made a few resolutions for this New Year. And, like most people, you too may fail at those resolutions in the very first month of the year. But don’t worry as you are in good company. In fact, a study in the United Kingdom reveals that only about 12% people meet their New Year goals and that means 88% people fail. Interestingly, 52% participants in a sample size of 3000 people said that they were confident of their success (http://www.quirkology.com/UK/Experiment_resolution.shtml)!

Consequently, I do not make any resolutions because, I believe, even if we are in the New Year, we are the same old you and I. We know that there is a lot of pressure on us to make New Year resolutions. The media is constantly bombarding us with the messages that challenge and motivate us to pull ourselves up by the shoulders and muster all the strengths we have to become the person that you and I are not: skinny, ever-loving, never smelly, rich, powerful, amicable, lovable, attractive, and so on and so forth. That is, everything the world wants us to become and in reality we cannot. Still, many of us jump on the bandwagon of yearly resolutions expecting this New Year to be different from the last years. However, a few weeks into the New Year and a whopping 88% people give up as they realize that they are the same old people. The years go by and we are stuck with the same old person who is getting older and older by every New Year!

Therefore, I think, instead of making resolutions, we need to work on getting a new us—a new you and a new me! This is possible only through looking within instead of eyeing only on the outside. The problem is not with the world. Rather, it lies within you and me. Unless there something changes within us, i.e., our attitude to be precise, the New Year resolutions would not help us much. Attitude is the key word that makes a huge difference in how the New Year will turn out for us. In fact, our attitude is more important than our circumstances, our successes, and our failures. It is more important than what others think of us and want us to be like or do. It is more important that what the media tells us that we should be like. We need to, then, pause and do a self-inventory of our attitude in this New Year. Attitude is how you react to your circumstances and people around you. Attitude is not revealed in how we normally live and react when everything goes the way we have planned it; rather, attitude manifests itself when we are faced with very trying circumstances and difficult people. Our response then reveals to us and to the world our true attitude. If somehow we could let the Holy Spirit to make changes within us than outside us, we may gain a better attitude and live more victoriously in the New Year. As the Apostle Paul wrote to the Romans:

“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2 NASB).

I close here with a short story that I read a while ago as it beautifully illustrates what attitude is and what it can do to us and to the world around us. Thanks for reading and God bless your journey!

“Once upon a time, there was an old and very wise man. Every day he would sit outside a gas station in his rocking chair and wait to greet motorists as they passed through his small town. On one particular day, his grandson knelt down at the foot of his chair and slowly passed the time with him. As they sat and watched the people come and go, a man who surely had to be a tourist began looking around as if he were checking out the area for a place to live.The stranger walked up to the old man and asked, “So what kind of town is this that I’m in?” The man replied, “Well, what kind of town are you from?”The tourist said, “Well, in the town where I’m from everyone is very critical of each other. The neighbors all gossip about everyone, and it’s a really negative place to live. I’m sure glad to be leaving. It is not a very cheerful place.”The old man in the chair looked at the stranger and said, “You know, that’s just how this town is.”An hour or so later, a family that was also passing through stopped for gas. The mother jumped out with two small children and went into the restroom. The father also got out of the car and, he too, struck up a conversation with the old man. “So,” he asked, “Is this town a pretty good place to live?” The old man in the chair replied, “Tell me about the town you’re from. How is it?”The father looked at him and said, “Well, in the town we’re from everyone is very close and always willing to lend their neighbor a helping hand. There’s always a hello and thank you everywhere you go. I really hate to leave. It’s almost like we are leaving family.” The older man gave him a warm smile. “You know, that’s a lot like this town.” Then the family returned to the car, waved goodbye and drove away.After the car disappeared in the distance, the boy looked up at his grandfather and asked, “Grandpa, how come when the first man came into our town you told him it was a terrible place to live, but when the family came into town you told them it was a wonderful place to live?” The grandfather looked down at his grandson and said, “Because, sonny, no matter where you move, you take your attitude with you – that’s what makes it terrible or wonderful.”

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Lenten Reflections 2012: Retreating into the wilderness with Jesus, Day 40

Published by V John on April 7, 2012

Day 40, Saturday, April 7, 2012

Today is the 40^th and last Day of Lent and I’m so happy for this journey into the wilderness with Jesus that we have been through. It’s for the first time that I did a Lent devotional and I liked it. If I have the time, I would love to do it again next year. For those of you who have been with me on this journey in the past forty days (and I know there aren’t many) either on our church’s Facebook page or on my blog, I really appreciate your time. I hope you have been blessed in some way. If so, I would love to get your feedback.

Today is called holy or silent Saturday, a day of preparation for celebrating the resurrection. Our Lord has been laid in the grave after He cried out with a loud voice on the cross, as He breathed His last: “Father into your hands I commit my spirit” (Luke 23:46). We need not mourn for the death of our Lord Jesus Christ because that was not the end of His life. In fact, it was the beginning of a new era that would inaugurated with His resurrections—an era of victory over sin, death and Satan. Jesus is victorious. The cross could not end His mission. In fact, the death on the cross was His earthly mission on which He was sent by His God the Father. In all the days of His wilderness experience and during His last week of passion in Jerusalem, Jesus was slowly moving to the cross. He knew the cross will be so painful, but He also trusted God who would raise Him up. The irrefutable fact of His resurrection made His timid disciples so bold that they could not hide themselves in the upper rooms. They went out into the streets, bazaars, and even to the Jerusalem Temple in a dangerous city. The disciples proclaimed this fact of God raising Jesus from the dead with all boldness even to the Jewish authorities,

“If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a man who was lame and are being asked how he was healed, then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. Jesus is

“‘the stone you builders rejected,

which has become the cornerstone.’

Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:9-12 NIV).

Friends, we need to pray and ask for the same kind of passion and boldness now to proclaim the good news of Jesus, His resurrection, and His coming again. The world needs it badly today more than ever and we are privileged to have the good news. Let’s keep sharing it with others until He comes again.

Have a blessed Easter. The Lord is risen! He’s risen indeed!

Dieing to live (pastorayres.wordpress.com)
Christ has risen! The significance of the Resurrection (rodiagnusdei.wordpress.com)
The power of Resurrection (thebereanway.wordpress.com)
The Resurrection: The Greatest Miracle (acatholicdad.wordpress.com)

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