The donkey has a story to tell about the crucifixion on Palm Sunday. This skit requires two people, the donkey and a translator. To pull it off effectively the person in the role of donkey must be willing to look foolish and to bray his/her heart out as he brays with excited enthusiasm one minute, brays in fear another, and brays in contentment and peace another. The translator’s job is to translate the braying into language the children will understand. For
Nicodemus went to see Jesus at night. Many use this scripture to describe Nicodemus as a coward. True, fear probably had everything to do with his decision to seek out Jesus in the cover of night. But Nicodemus wasn’t an average citizen, he was a Pharisee. His co-workers and friends were Pharisees, and the Pharisees were rapidly turning against Jesus and looking to find a way to have him killed. The fact that Nicodemus, in spite of all of this
The Pharisees were the religious in-crowd of Jesus’ day. They were the authority figures in the synagogues. Their teachings had been handed down from the time of Moses, but the Pharisees had added knit-picky rules and adapted them to suit themselves over the centuries. Jesus came with teachings that reflected the original intent of God’s laws. His teachings embarrassed the Pharisees by exposing their hypocrisy. The people flocked to hear Jesus teachings and to see the miracles he performed. Meanwhile the Pharisees
Mothers were bringing their children and babies to Jesus hoping he might touch them, but the Disciples were annoyed. In their minds Jesus had more important things to do than to be bothered with children. But Jesus’ response surprised them. “Let the little children come to me… for to such belongs the Kingdom of God.” (Matthew 19:14) Jesus made it clear to his Disciples that children have great worth. They don’t become important after they mature into adults
What is Ash Wednesday? I grew up in the church and had often heard about the 40 days of Lent in which Christians would give up something for Lent, but I had never heard of Ash Wednesday until my last move when I joined my present church. The Ash Wednesday service serves as a reminder to the congregation that we came from dust and that we will return to dust. This message is personally delivered to each participant as they
