MY PRECIOUS JESUS, HOW GREAT THOU ART..…

Consider all the world's thy hands have made … how great thou art.

How many times have I said it and how many times have I meant it? I get that piercing rip through my heart when I look into thy loving, compassionate eyes, but what have I done for thee. Nothing at all. But Jesus you know I love you with my heart and soul. Everything climaxes ultimately to Good Friday that finally you redeemed us all. There is no one Christian who would have passed a day and for that matter, a moment without repenting this Lent season but that is insufficient. It has to come from the heart and be a commitment to Jesus. Many of us feel the tears rolling down, sighs escaping and pierced by guilt but remain mortals. That's we are. When the week of agony passes away and Jesus Christ ascends, we all forget our spiritual pledges

And continue our sinful lives forgetting how great he is.

UNDERSTAND THE WORD

For Jesus to abide in us, we have to understand his word and accept the final sacrifice, any child of God from time and original translation in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek texts, will understand the correct meaning and grasp the greater degree of assurance, perhaps because of the underlying cultural and historical significance. Every word in their sacred identity were used in the ancient and modern translations, to English as well as in other Languages in the presence of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Bible remains our contact with God and his son, Jesus Christ.

It is the most translated authentic text to be read by millions of races and nations and anyone dare contradict its statements. We find Lord Jesus's birth, sacrifice and ascension in the New Testament.

WHO WAS JESUS?

The Living Saviour, our servant who serve us, the Living water who quench us, our food that he provides us, he is the way and the truth, he is our life - giving shepherd. He is also our light in darkness. He is the way when we stumble. Jesus is god and the coming king in all glory. He is the door, we have only to knock and it is open to one and all. He is our Redeemer because of which he sacrificed his beautiful and compassionate life to save the word. The Risen Lord the world venerate in spirituality.

I know Jesus as my Saviour but he knows me better; my frailties and how I let him down in moments of temptations of the world but he loves me over and over again with no animosity but with compassion. Jesus said ‘I am the Door’ but what lay behind the door is our own seeking and the door has come down to all of us and it is open to believers who are willing to understand his descriptive metaphors of revealing himself. If so, we must ask ourselves why we continue standing in the dark?

A believing Christian is not nominal. They are not the progeny of the first Christian generation who have strayed from Biblical Christianity and often under the influence distorted teachings of Jesus Christ but there are others who sacrificed their lives for spiritual truth, the catalysts of such spiritual revolution.

Therefore, we cannot live without Jesus for wholeness of life that many non-Christians have come to recognized in our Lord, especially because of his crucifixion and the way he sacrificed to redeem the world not only those who believed in him but all non-believers.

Good Friday is not only for us but for the whole world, every individual every nation up in arms against each other, Jesus belongs to everyone, even to Pilate who sentenced him to death and Herod who found Jesus innocent against charges leveled against him. Even upon the cross, he forgave the thief who trusted him and repented. Such was the undying love for all. The Bible speaks of the nine fold fruit of the Holy Spirit (Gal. 5:22). It refers to the character of Jesus. Remember, it is the fruit and not fruits. It is an integrated whole. It is one multiple fruit and it is the Holy Spirit who produces Christ character in us. Jesus vanquished death and rose again to fulfill his Father's promise to release the bondage that Satan holds over us, His children.

Jesus knew his time had come for the mission to be completed and obeys his Father in heaven. He knew by now everything was completed and in order to the scriptures to come true. He said ‘I am thirsty'. He was given a bowl of cheap wine. Jesus drank the wine and said ‘It is finished'. Then he bowed his head and died. It was Friday. An army officer who saw what happened, praised God. Saying ‘Certainly, he was a good man'.

Earlier, Jesus was put through immense suffering carrying the heavy cross up the hill by the soldiers who had no mercy on him. It was about twelve o'clock when the sun stopped shining and darkness covered the whole country until three o'clock and the curtains hanging in the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split apart, the graves broke open and many of God's people had died were raised to life. It was amazing. They left the graves and after Jesus rose from death, they went into the Holy City where many people saw them. The soldiers, who were watching Jesus, saw the earthquakes and everything else that happened and were terrified.

The man named Joseph from Arimathea who loved Jesus very much and to whom the body of Jesus was given by Pilate for burial, took charge of the mortal remains of Jesus. That night Joseph and Nicodemus took about thirty kilograms of spices, a mixture of myrrh and alooes and wrapped him in linen which is the Jewish custom of preparing for burial. After everyone left the burial site, Mary Magdeline could not tear herself away from Jesus because she loved him so much, much more than all who knew Jesus. However, she departed only to return early morning.

JESUS APPEARS FIRST TO MARY MAGDALINE

At dawn, Mary stood crying outside the tomb. She was heart-broken and in despair as she peeped over and looked into the tomb and saw the angels dressed in white sitting where the body of Jesus had been, one at the head and the other at feet.

‘Woman, why are you crying?’ they asked her and Mary answered,

‘They have taken my Lord away and I do not know where they have put him.’

Then she turned around and saw Jesus standing there but did not know it was Jesus.

‘Woman, why are you crying’ Jesus asked her. ‘Who is it that you are looking for’ She thought it was the gardener. So, she said to him,

‘If you took him away Sir, tell me where you have put him and I will go and get him'. Jesus called her ‘Mary'. Immediately, she turned around to face Jesus and uttered in Hebrew,

‘Rabboni’ (Meaning Teacher)

‘Do not hold on to me’ Jesus advised her ‘because I have not yet gone back to my Father but go to my brothers and tell them that I am returning to Him who is my Father and their Father, my God and their God.

The magnified Mary went and told the disciples what the Lord had related to her. Her heart was filled with joy as Jesus appeared to her first among all, a woman raised from sin and whom Jesus too loved.

In the recess of our hearts, let us welcome Jesus into our midst this season and thereafter and strike an everlasting relationship as that of Mary in the stillness of Lent.

An excerpt from a message to his sheep by the Lord Bishop of Colombo, Rt. Rev. Delo Canagasaby during the lent season to cleanse our hearts in the solitude of prayer'.

Stillness, silence and calm are becoming so removed from our lives and even from our worship of God. And yet, it is in the stillness and in the silence that God speaks to us and we discern his will “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10) Let us make time during this Lent withdrawal, for quietness, for stillness and for listening, so that our hearts and minds may be attuned God's presence and our walk strengthened and made surer.

Our Pilgrimage from Lent to Easter

The period of Lent is a preparation for the events of the Passion week where we meditate upon and accompany Jesus on his last entry to Jerusalem, to the last Supper with his disciples, to his vigil in the Garden of Gethsemane, to his betrayal, trial and execution. At his trial Jesus told Pilate, “I have come into the world to bear witness to Truth”(John 18.37). As disciples of Jesus, the Church too is called upon to follow the example of her Lord and Master to stand for and witness to the truth. The truth is more often than not, unpalatable, inconvenient, a nuisance and even n unnecessary luxury for those in position of power and authority, as it was to Herod, Pilate and the many Herods and Pilates of history then and now and as it is indeed it can be for us all. The truth is nevertheless what renews and librates us from ourselves, our selfish ways, our small mindedness and our pretty concerns.

Let us then together partake this Lent of that death that Christ died in order to make us free. For he offers us a better way of life, emptied of the heavy weight of our self centredness, so that together with Christ we may rise, as the scripture declares ….” Set free from bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.” (Roman 8.21)