by Sharon O | Apr 11, 2025 | Uncategorized
This week has great meaning for many Christians.
Churches will be full of visitors and others who make it a normal part of their week.
It is a serious week.
Soon we will experience the quiet Wednesday before everything begins to change.
Jesus understood and knew the magnitude of this time for him.
Just as when he was a little baby being born, laboring and struggling through the process of life.
This time he is laboring and struggling towards his death.
He knew it was a difficult death in fact in the garden he even pleaded with God, “Father, is there any other way?”
I can’t imagine him walking the pathways of crosses with those who had been placed there before him.
I can’t imagine the heart wrenching reality of all that would take place.
In the garden when he needed others to be with him, they moved to safety or even fell asleep.
It was a struggle as he worked through what was to come for him.
He knew it had to take place for the story to be fulfilled.
He was there from the beginning, and he knew he would be there to the end.
The middle part was the hardest.
Isn’t that kind of like life? The middle part is where it all happens then it’s soon over.
Nothing was a surprise for him.
The agony and the abandonment, the weight of so much on his shoulders, the week would be a multitude of emotions.
Through it all HE KNEW HE WOULD WIN.
But the process had to take place.
Just as the journey to Bethlehem for Mary and Joseph before birth was long and scary and often difficult.
The journey of the cross is not much different.
I would not want to be there.
When I was a little girl, I remember hearing the song, “were you there, when they crucified my Lord?”
NO, I would not want to be there. I want warm calm moments.
I cannot be around violent scenes or issues.
Every player in the journey to the cross had to play a part and be an important part of the plan.
They all had jobs to do even if they fully didn’t understand the role they played.
This week has great meaning for many Christians as we wait in the quiet.
by Sharon O | Apr 8, 2025 | Uncategorized
Palm Sunday the week before Easter.
The final entrance for Jesus.
Everything he had done up to this time prepared him for what was to come in the days ahead of him.
Christmas was the story of his birth; Palm Sunday is the story fulfilling his death.
I remember the years in church where we would sing the songs of triumph.
Easter cantatas by choirs dressed in the finest of clothes. Sometimes robes.
“Praise him blessed is he who cometh in the name of the Lord.”
It was a joyous time and a time of celebrations.
But there is always another side of this, and we will soon see it all take place.
In Mark 11
As Jesus and his disciples approached Jerusalem they came to the towns of Bethpage and Bethany on the mount of olives.
Jeus sent two of them on ahead.
“Go into the village over there. As soon as you enter it, you will see a young donkey tied there that no one has ever ridden.
Untie it and bring it here, if anyone asks what you are you doing?
just say the Lord needs it and will return it soon.”
The two disciples left and found the colt, standing in the street tied outside the front door.
They were questioned and after they explained they were given permission to take the colt.
Jesus placed his garments upon the colt and then began his ride into the town.
I’m sure he was feeling the ‘gut’ ache one would feel knowing the journey is taking an intense turn.
The disciples had no clue the dramatic events that will be surrounding them.
It was all a part of the plan and all a part of Jesus journey.
Palm Sunday the week before Easter and the intensity and the emotions will soon begin. 
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by Sharon O | Apr 7, 2025 | Uncategorized
This is the season leading up to Easter and in the Chirstian world many are choosing a purposeful time of sabbath.
A quiet shift reflecting the deep meaning of what is to come within the story.
The story of Easter is hard.
It is celebrations and also great grief.
Words cannot begin to share the emotional season around this time.
Palm Sunday when people were welcoming Jesus, happy and celebrating him.
They praised him and greeted him with joy as he rode the donkey into town.
Just as his mother Mary rode the donkey to his birthing place, HE rode the donkey to his dying place.
Did you know that every donkey has a cross on its back deep into the fur?
Interesting fact. Not accidental.
Celebrations and happy greetings and then not even a week later anger and hatred towards him.
The passion of Jesus as he entered into this season was filled with many heart wrenching moments.
It is a most horrific way to die. He knew it.
We must grasp the power and imagery of the idea that ‘God SO loved all of us so much that he gave his only son so that whoever believes in him shall not perish.’
He chose to do this. For US, people who often rejected him.
It is all about choice. and belief and hope given to a world who desperately needs it.
The journey to the cross was a difficult finality of the life Jesus had here.
It was planned. It was orchestrated just as his birth was in details and in placement of people.
The rejection from his ‘tribe’ of men who walked with him and believed in his teachings.
Had to be hard for him. Yet I believe he knew they would do that.
He knew what they would say or do or choose and HE gave grace to them anyway.
Peter said to him, “I will never deny you,” But he did, three times.
When times of testing take place all of us have a choice.
Fear or faith.
This is the season leading up to Easter and those who believe will watch and remember all that he told them.
by Sharon O | Apr 5, 2025 | Uncategorized
As we continue the journey towards Easter, I am reminded of the disciples who were not that different from us.
They left homes, jobs, families and followed Jesus a man who they had just met.
Because he said, ‘come follow.”
Because his voice gave them reason to give up in order to gain.
Common sense would tell you that is not a thought-out process.
To leave what was secure and follow what is not known.
But I believe Jesus KNEW who he was picking to follow him and to become his TRIBE,
I am fully convinced he knew the response they would give him and then knew how to gather them together in a group.
Perhaps they didn’t know each other in the beginning.
It was a group forming and they followed him.
They could not fully understand his wisdom.
Even Mary and Joseph were amazed at his wisdom.
There is a knowing, then there is a heart filled knowing.
Mary knew in her heart what the angel had told her,
but she was also the mother who would watch and observe and believe in, her son.
As the disciples watched miracle after miracle, then listened to his teaching and healings.
They were there. Close to him.
There was no reason for them to question him for he lived a believable life.
When he challenged them, He did not shame them, he wanted them to know the truth.
For he often said, ‘the truth will set you free’.
The journey towards Easter has many paths and we will follow some of them in this process.
The story is not just a little golden book read to little Children about Jesus riding on a donkey.
There was purpose. planned out so each scripture could be fulfilled.
Just like the story of Christmas each player, each reaction or response was all a part of the plan.
To fulfill the purpose God had set in motion.
As we continue the journey towards Easter we will listen and learn about the great love the father has for us.
by Sharon O | Apr 4, 2025 | Uncategorized
When we talk about the Easter story, we need to go back to the Christmas story.
The reason Jesus came as a baby to Mary and Joseph was for HIS life to be more believable to those watching.
The angel told Mary, “You are the one chosen’.
Joseph was chosen also to carry the weight of being supportive of Mary and later baby Jesus.
Without Christmas we can’t have Easter.
God planned for Jesus to grow in wisdom and stature.
The plan was for HIM to live as normal as possible till his 30’s when his ministry would begin.
I cannot imagine the disciples living with him, walking alongside him and listening to HIM.
How did they ever respond to the rumblings of the people as the Easter weekend began.
We stayed with some friends this weekend and when you stay with someone you see them within the realness of who they are.
Morning hair, need for coffee, and I would imagine Jesus would wake up and then begin teaching.
Mary Knew her son was special, and I wonder as he grew into a man how did she respond to the reality of ‘WHO’ he was deep in her heart..
When he turned water into wine, she knew he could do it but was surprised when HE DID.
Every mother who has ever had a child has the same moments. WOW I am proud of you for that accomplishment.
The Christmas story is about the beginning. The life given to HIM.
The ministry years were short, and we were not told much about the middle years.
Mary had to reconcile in her heart as any mother would that her son was sent for a very special reason and as the words spoken to her said, ‘a sword will pierce your heart.’
She didn’t know what that meant and she was not going to hold onto it very long.
When we talk about the Easter story, we have to go back to the Christmas story where it all began.
