Passion Week

Palm Sunday is a 24-hour-ago event of the past. The branches that sweeped through the center aisles of traditional churches are bagged and tossed. "Hosanna" likewise is finished being uttered on the lips of Christ's preparatory children and people for this week before the coming crucifixion. It is a week of mourning; the week when dawns brought not yet joy. In fact, dawn brought the commencement of disobedience, betrayal and suffering. Christ's strength tried in this dread act of crucifixion and now victory remains with love. What a joy we see peeping up over the horizon, under a week away with the risen Paschal lamb. Praise be to God!

For as the Old Testament ended in a curse the New begins with an inherited blessing. An eight-part harmony of blessing pronounced on a mount. Aware of what He would make the Jews remember, the mounts where from the law rattled off the implied blessing and certain cursings on Ebal and Gerizim, Jesus shifts the paradigm. Now as He expresses beatus - for we read "he came into the world to bless us" -  the Gospel is a dispensation of life whereas the law an administration of death. This new promise allures us to Christ. From the hand of the One who cures to the gracious words that precede out of His mouth, indeed we can say "This must be our sweet and loving Savior!"

From now until Easter Monday there is a beatitude to rest in. This week I plan to highlight one or two a day for meditation. As we light daily incense of prayer before God's throne of grace, we see the success of His mercy ministry on His people as responsive to our pleading. Nothing passes between God-all-hearing and fallen man but through His hand.

The beauty of these blessings and their divine revelation is that we see what God expects from us, the meek impoverished spirits that we are, and what we may expect from Him. The covenant is an enjoyable communion. The agreement between God and man is settled and summed.

Is not faith then but a conformity to these characters and a dependence on these promises? For each of these joy-ushering blessings we see a present blessing pronounced and a future blessing promised. This week, the Holy week - each day one Moriah step closer to the cross - we demarcate this exchange of the law for the cup when we acknowledge for what Christ came "as the great High Priest of our profession in whom all the families of the earth should be blessed."

May we be attitudinally bound to this pronouncement of our new identity, given to rectify the mistakes of a blind and carnal world, removing discouragement from we who are weak and poor, and inviting souls to Christ, making a way for His law in our hearts!

*Any wisdom that seems too good to come from my lips most likely comes from Matthew Henry's Commentaries.