A most significant week!

As students were walking solemnly out of the theatre having just viewed Mel Gibson's "The Passion of The Christ", I was startled to see the tear soaked eyes of Eric, the Sigma Phi Epsilon president that I had invited to the showing.  The year was 2004. The event was a movie outreach at the University of Tennessee. We had packed two theaters with over 500 students, many who were Christians that had invited non Christian friends. Not knowing Eric's spiritual background, I had invited him and given him 10 tickets to bring a few of his fraternity brothers.

Having been a follower of Christ for almost 15 years at the time, I was moved by the stunning depiction of Christ's last hours of life and death on the cross. Yet I was equally struck by how moved this 20 year old student was in response to what he had seen. I'm not sure what all transpired in Eric's heart that night in relation to defining his beliefs, but I knew that he was gripped by the display of Christ's death that the scriptures declare was a demonstration of God's extraordinary love for us. (Romans 5:8)

During the coming week I am compelled to re-read the Gospel accounts of Christ's suffering, death, and Resurrection. I want to take time to marinate on the depth and significance of these events and what they actually mean to and for me.  A great passage to consider this week is Philippians 2; "Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a 'servant', being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross."

This charge is then followed by one of the grandest statements of the victorious reality of the Resurrection. "Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

This Easter season I pray that each of us will reconsider the life changing realities that God in Christ has given to us, as those whom He deeply loves.  May we make much of Him as He has made much of us.