Devotional Guide
For the week of March 20, 2005
THE PASSION OF CHRIST
To Read: 1 Corinthians 13,14
To Know:
"The word of the Lord came to me again: 'What do you mean by repeating this
proverb concerning the land of Israel, 'The fathers have eaten sour grapes,
and the children's teeth are set on edge'? As I live, says the Lord God,
this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel. Behold, all souls are
mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine: the
soul that sins shall die." (Ezekiel 18:1-4)
Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" is a good film for Good Friday. The
filmmaker captured on film the significance of the cross. Justice is the
principle operating, established for all intelligent beings. A just God
judges men and angels. Mark Twain's cynical observation was that sometimes
it is necessary to rise above principle. Before Charles Colson became a new
man in Jesus Christ, he was an unprincipled counsel to the president. After
the Watergate break-in the president's men rallied to conceal White House
involvement in the crime. So outside the rules was Colson that he earned the
nickname "hatchet man."
We are an increasingly unprincipled society. Our hope is in another man who
himself rose above principle. The principle on which the universe rests was
stated by Ezekiel, ".the soul that sins shall die." (18:4) In order to save
sinners, Christ needed to rise above principle into the regions where love
takes action. This the Lord did without violating the demands of justice.
Rather, he satisfied justice and fulfilled the demands of love when he
vanquished evil by dying the death that sinners rightly deserve. That is the
central message of "The Passion of the Christ."
To Read:
Saturday: 1 Corinthians 15,16
Sunday: 2 Corinthians 1-3
03255$-03255
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