Kitteh looks surprised that it’s Friday.
Good morning. I hope you slept well.
When I looked at the weather for the next week, I finally realized why so many days are gloomy here: Average rainfall is 57”. *sigh*
My list is ready for tomorrow, but I almost feel as if I’d rather just order online. Weekends are normally the only time I have contact with the Other Folks, so I try not to miss it. For what it’s worth.
Good morning. Happy Friday!
Princess is 2 today. But she still acts like a big puppy.
I went to book a haircut yesterday. There was a post from the barber thanking everyone saying it was time to make a change and an opportunity had presented itself. Since he just got back from FL and was talking about looking at some homes there, I guess he finally took the freedom trail. Thanks, Gov. Hochul. Now I have to find a new barber.
My Good Friday Message to My Friends
Christianity testifies that Christ died on The Cross for our sin, but despite it being true the claim is so glib, so vastly understated, that it all but misses the mark entirely. Much focus is given to what happened, and why, and indeed the event and the implications are profound in their own right, but the sheer immensity of it all cannot begin to be apprehended absent a crystal clear grasp of how.
For it was the will of God to crush him, to put him to grief.
— Is. 53:10
Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And after he said this he breathed his last.
— Luke 23:46
In the events leading to Calvary, the orchestrations of man merely fulfilled the plan of God. That, for the joy set before him, Jesus laid down his life as a ransom for many.
For there is one God and one intermediary between God and humanity, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself as a ransom for all...
— I Timothy 2:5-6
Upon The Cross, Christ became our propitiation — our substitute — receiving upon himself the due penalty of all sin, and he received it from none other than The Father, Himself.
The penalty for trespass against The Almighty is to be executed by The Almighty, for only the One Whom you have affronted has authority to carry out the sentence against you, and only death justly answers the magnitude of the offense; and not only cardinal offenses, but every single, solitary offense down to the very most minuscule.
For the wages (payback, penalty) of sin is death
— Romans 6:23
For just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.
— I Corinthians 15:21-22
In other words, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting people’s trespasses against them...
— II Corinthians 5:19
The real work of The Cross was unilaterally God’s work of carrying out the death penalty for sin upon The Son to eternally satisfy the warrant of condemnation against us and purchase — at inestimable cost — universal forgiveness for all.
And even though you were dead in your transgressions and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, [God] nevertheless made you alive with [Christ], having forgiven all your transgressions. He has destroyed what was against us, a certificate of indebtedness expressed in decrees opposed to us. He has taken it away by nailing it to the cross.
— Colossians 2:13-14
And He nailed it to The Cross in the Person of His Own Son.
But now Christ has come as the high priest of the good things to come. He passed through the greater and more perfect tent not made with hands, that is, not of this creation, and he entered once for all into the Most Holy Place not by the blood of goats and calves but by his own blood, and so he himself secured eternal redemption.
— Hebrews 9:11-12
Crucifixion was a cruel and tortuous death precisely because it ensured the condemned would remain alive, and in agony often for two, even three days; long enough for a hardy man to die of thirst before anything else. And yet, to the utter astonishment of the attending Centurion who’d doubtless seen his share of crucifixions, Jesus lasted but a scant three hours. Be assured of this: no mere man killed Jesus; the Jews didn’t kill him, nor did the Romans. No, God Himself executed him there on our behalf, completing in fact the prefiguring acted out by Abraham and Isaac many centuries before, just as Abraham himself prophesied.
Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father?” “What is it, my son?” he replied. “Here is the fire and the wood,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” And Abraham answered, “GOD WILL PROVIDE FOR HIMSELF THE LAMB....”
— Genesis 22:7-8
And so, He has. May God be forever praised.
“Stricken, Smitten And Afflicted” — Fernando Ortega
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-QFx5RRqFM
[Kleenex Alert]