Good Friday Reflections on Mark 14:43-65

Shared by Dan Garcia, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship

We’ve been here before. I’ve heard this story. Watched it play out. Within me, my cynic shakes its head, projecting onto life a world-weary wisdom. The narrative is straightforward: the good person rises up; a good idea comes forth; a movement gains traction. There is hope. There is trust. The palm branches wave, and people sing.

But, my cynic shakes its head.

Time passes. Either from within or outside, things begin to crumble. Perhaps the solidarity is lost. Perhaps good intentions are sullied and motives become twisted. Perhaps the powers that be win the day. Reality, as it were, collides, leaving disillusionment, leaving embarrassment.

And my cynic shakes its head.

And joins in with the crowds yelling out “Prophesy!” Perhaps, spoken in anger, whispering, “To think I could have trusted you. I dare you to speak truth anymore.” Perhaps, spoken in jadedness, “Now, have you learned your lesson?

Friends betray and abandon.

Justice miscarries and fails.

And yes, power wins.”

But , my cynic shakes its head.

Surly Jesus knew this. How could he not? Every day of his earthly life he lived it, surrounded by Roman rule. Countless crosses for countless countrymen. He knew it from history, crying out, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.” He knew what would happen, he spoke of what would happen, and he affirmed it even now, “The Scriptures must be fulfilled.” So maybe, just maybe, my cynicism is left unexpectedly exposed, stymied, staring at itself in a mirror. Revealing itself as a faith in faithlessness, a trust in the untrustworthiness of life. “No,” it shakes “It can’t be. He’s insane. He’s confused. He’s . . . ” So, clinging with weakening fingers to a creedless creed, it watches Jesus leave the Sanhedrin, to go before Pilate.

And still, my cynic shakes its head.

Yet . . .

In spite of itself it can’t walk away; I can’t walk away.

I must know how the story ends.

Easter Sunday!

Happy Easter everyone! I just wanted to share something that my pastor was telling us during our message that really spoke to me.
But before I get into that…I went to the show The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg that Living Water put on today and it was awesome! Props to everyone who put all that effort into it! It was really a blessing to watch it .

Anyways back to the sermon. The topic was the typical Easter Sunday sermon about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But there was one thing he pointed out thats been on my mind the whole day after the sermon. The passage was from John chapter 19 and 20, and he pointed out that the book of John is different from the other Gospels because he doesnt focus so much on the physical evidence, the miracles that Jesus performed. He is more interested in the changed lives of the disciples and the individuals that encountered Christ. The radically reformed lives of the disciples is the testimony to the saving grace of Christ.

This got me thinking a lot. If they were lying…if Christ was a lie and a fraud that would mean the disciples died for a lie. And when you look at the lives of the disciples all of them died horrible deaths for Christ’s sake. I think it s hard enough to die for something that is just, let alone something that is false. On the other hand, if Christ is real and if encountering him radically changed them in such a way, what does that show about our lives? Can we truly say that we are saved and that we encountered the love of Christ if we continue to chase after the passions of the world and not after the love of God?

I guess this passage just made me do a lot of self reflecting. We also watched this sermon done by Paul Washer in our fellowship. This guy is amazing and if you have some time you should really check him out. Ill post the link. Some of it is a bit hard to swallow but he really gets you thinking.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cncEhCvrVgQ

"Finding God in the Universe"

This past Friday our fellowship, Acts2Fellowship, had a special talk called “Finding God in the Universe” presented by Daniel Kim. We went over the fine-tuning argument for the existence of God, which the prominent atheist Richard Dawkins himself has said is the most impressive argument for the existence of God. When we look at the constants that govern the universe (such as the value of universal gravitational constant, speed of light, etc.), we start to see a very strange thing – that they seem to be extremely fine-tuned so that galaxies and planets can arise, so that complex life forms can be sustained. These relatively recent findings have caused quite a stir among the scientific community, because unlike the biological “intelligent design” argument, the apparent fine-tuning we find in the universe does not deal with evolution at all.

The night started with dinner in the courtyard outside GPBB. It was really exciting to see so many new faces, as well as friends who had visited A2F before but hadn’t been to our Friday Bible Study for a while. As the talk started, I was hopeful that some intellectual barriers would be cleared for those who might be seeking God. Everyone was very engaged throughout the talk, since Daniel used lots of interesting examples, animations and statistics, methodically instilling us with a proper awe for the finely-tuned universe we live in. After the talk, Daniel fielded questions which the audience had submitted on slips of paper.

All in all, I was very thankful for how the night went. Although our talk was by no means a water-tight proof for God’s existence, it accomplished its goal…to draw people ever so slightly out of their skepticism or pre-conceived notions of Christianity and give them a chance to experience our community and encounter God. It was great to hear the buzz of conversations after the talk was over as so many people were asking tough questions and, I think, being quite surprised by the intelligent answers. Some people who were skeptical walked away a little more open. Some people who aren’t usually very serious had a chance to zoom out and consider the very serious question of whether God exists.

Check out the questions and answers from the talk at a forum we set up!