Out there the instincts to protect yourself from embarrassment, ridicule, and rejection can easily overcome you as they did Peter. Our only hope is in Peter’s Lord.
Passion Week preaching is not simply preaching about the events leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion but to announce to the world how through this single death, sins are answered for, and God is reconciled with humanity.
Tomorrow Jesus will laugh his way out of the tomb, spit in the face of death, and kick the devil in the throat as he dances to the clapping glee of angelic masses. But today he just rests.
Golgotha is the point where not only Mary and John’s family life assumed a new character, but it is the point of orientation for all human community that uses the cross to straighten out the lives of individuals turned in upon themselves.