Trial Before Pilate

Matthew 27:2,11-32, Mark 15:1-5, 11-22, Luke 23:1-16, 18-19, 24-31, John 18:28-40, 19:1-17
John 18:36-37 – Jesus shows such complete confidence under pressure in who he is, his relationship with God and his position and authority under God. I wish I could have some of that confidence. I spend to much time doubting myself and wondering what I ought to believe and stand for. I wonder if God is with me – or more accurately if I’m with God. I feel a little like Pilate in John 18:38, “What is truth?” I want to have Jesus’ confidence and security.
Matthew 27:24-25 – I wonder if I had been Pilate what I would have done. It is clear that on some level he was convinced of Jesus’ innocence and even tried on more than one occasion to get the crowd to let Him go. I can imagine myself feeling like I cannot let this go on, but hen faced with an angry, vocal mob and religious leaders inciting them, what could I do? If I let him go, the mob may kill him themselves. But to give in to a travesty of justice, one that would end in a man’s death seems unthinkable. In the end the symbolic washing of hands and the declaring that it was not my problem anymore would have seemed like an attractive solution, even though it in no way could absolve me of responsibility. It would have felt like I had gotten out from under it, but in reality I could not have. Symbolism over substance.

I’m tired …

Nothing new of significance to post, I’m just feeling pretty blah in general. Tired of trying to make a big deal of things, finding the Big Meaning in things. Work’s been stressful, adding to things.
One of things that attracted me to my church family some 16 1/2 years ago was that they took their Christianity seriously. What I mean is they lived it and it was the most important thing in their lives. Maybe it’s just my mood (and my tendency to over analyze things, right Paul, BEG?), but I’ve grown tired of looking for the big issue, the important concept and the deep meaning. Is that what Christianity is about, the constant search of the the “real” truth?
Rhetorical question, I guess. I suspect the answer is both yes and no. At anyrate, I’m tired of the digging, so nothing deep for now. Maybe more posts on car parts.

Betrayal and Arrest

Matthew 26:36-75, 27:1, 3-10; Mark 14:32-39, 43-72, 15:1; Luke 22:40-71; John 18:1-24, 26-27
Luke 22:44 – His anguish drove him to the father in prayer. I used to do that more and I need to return to this habit. When my heart aches or is heavy, prayer is the answer.
Matthew 26:43-46 – I wonder if the disciples felt guilty for sleeping and allowing Judas to sneak in to betray Jesus. Certainly later they would understand the fulfillment of prophecy, but at that moment did they think “If only I had stayed awake, this wouldn’t have happened!”
John 18:2 – Jesus made no attempt to hide, he went to pray in a familiar place. He could have went somewhere new, harder to locate, but he chose someplace familiar instead. He wanted to be found.
This passage is a great example of what I like about the chronological Bible. It puts the details of Jesus’ arrest, scattered through the gospels, together in one story. Check out sort of how it reads here. Biblegateway puts the footnotes and the NIV logo after every passage, which makes it a little harder to read.
Luke 22:60-62 – This is a haunting passage. Can you imagine the eternal length of that glance from Jesus? Can you imagine the emotions they both were feeling? It’s gut wrenching to think about for me.

Notifications

I’ve added comment notification subscriptions to my blog. There’s a form on each entry to receive an email when there are new comments on that entry or to receive an email when I post a new entry. Each email notice includes a link for managing your subscriptions. That means that you can now get even more email from salguod.net!
Now how much would you pay?

Righteous Among the Nations

I’ve meant to do more with this category and this story is just why I created it. I want to share stories I hear about people who go out of their way, sometimes at great personal risk, to take care of someone else. From The Week magazine, April 22, 2005, in the “It Wasn’t All Bad” section:

Israel has honored a World War II German army officer who saved about 1,200 Jews from the Holocaust. Maj. Karl Plagge ran a vehicle-repair facility for the army, using Jewish workers. When the SS began annihilating Jews in the nearby Vilnius ghetto, Plagge kept requesting more and more workers. He also convinced authorities to take along their families, supposedly to boost their motivation. The Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial group accorded Plagge its coveted “Righteous Among the Nations” title. Plagge joins 20,757 others who have been recognized for saving Jews from the Nazis. Only 410 are German, and just a handful were German soldiers.

Go check out the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial site. You can read more stories of their “Righteous Among the Nations”, including the famous Oskar Schindler.
BTW – If you’ve never heard of The Week, you should check it out. It’s sort of like Cliff’s Notes for other newspapers and magazines, a collection of snippets from all over. They pull in opinion pieces from different sides of issues in the news as well as things from overseas sources. Good stuff.

Final Discourse

John 15-17
John 15:9-17 – This is one of Jesus’ last times to teach his disciples, the twelve. He’s wrapping up His ministry here. He tells them that they have graduated, from servant to friend since He’s taught them everything God taught Him. And what is His final instruction? Watch over the doctrine of the church, keep it pure? No. Watch over the flock, make sure no one uncommitted gets in? No. Determinedly study the scriptures and know them like the back of your hand? No. He says, simply:

My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.

and

This is my command: Love each other. (vs. 12 & 17)

Why, then, do we so passionately pursue those other things and treat our relationships in the church so casually?
John 15:18 – I have always loved that verse.
John 15:26 – The spirit is there to teach us about God. It is through God’s spirit within us that God is revealed.
John 16:7 – I’ve never looked at this scripture quite like this. Jesus says that it’s good that He leaves them so that they can receive the spirit. The implication here is that it is better for us to have the spirit than to physically be with Jesus. Often we say, “Oh, what it must have been like to live with Jesus!”, but Jesus says here that it is better to live with the spirit that with Jesus! We have it better than the Apostles.
John 16:13 – The spirit will guide us into all truth. He’s there to relay information to us from God.
John 16:33 – I need these words of encouragement. It seems at times that the world is taking over me. Materialism and greed, pride and selfishness. But Jesus has overcome the world.

Silblades

If you’re like me, you hate driving in the rain with bad wipers. I actually enjoy driving in bad weather, but bad wipers really annoy me. Last fall, my old Anco AeroVantage blades in both cars had taken to that annoying BRRRRRPPP if there wasn’t enough rain on the windshield. In fact, it had gotten to the point that it was rare for them not to do that, and they weren’t that old. It was driving Maria nuts to the point that she’d crank the radio way up to avoid hearing it. She was already a little anxious about driving in bad weather, the noise just sent her over the edge. So I set out to look for a better wiper.
That’s when I found some online reviews of SilBlades. They are wipers made from GE Silicone rubber instead of natural rubber. Supposedly, natural rubber breaks down in a matter of months while these will last for years. What I read, they sounded to good to be true. Everyone said they were fantastic and lasted forever; in fact they come with a 5 year unconditional guarantee. Of course lots of junk products come with big guarantees knowing that people never take the time to return things that break or don’t save the paper work, so I was still skeptical. The fact that everything I read, including a comments for folks at Odyclub, indicated that 6 months is the expected life of a wiper blade (even Anco agrees) didn’t help.
I decided to take a chance on them when I discovered that I could get them at Amazon for $12 instead of the $22 they go for at the Silblade site. I put them on both cars in December.
The initial difference wasn’t substantial. What I mean is they performed flawlessly, nor more BRRRRRPPP, and a nice clean windshield, but I’d expect that from any brand new wiper. A big difference became noticeable after a week or two. Over time, the GE Silicone in the blades coats the surface of the glass like Rain-X. That means that the water beads up and runs off the glass at any moderate to fast speed. There’s no film of water on the glass to blur the view out the windshield. I cannot over state what an amazing difference this is. During the day and on lighted streets at night, you can drive with the wipers at one speed lower than you used to because you can see clearly ‘between’ the drops on the window. At night on a dark highway, you don’t need the wipers at all – in fact it’s had to tell a difference.
After about 5 months, they are still performing as good as new. I will never buy another type of wiper blade.

It’s Been Quiet Around Here

Sorry I haven’t written much of late. I’ve been spending my computer time tweaking my site and reading other blogs. I have some cool upgrades to implement soon including a means for commenters to edit their own posts. I realize, however, that the half a dozen folks (I think that may be optimistic) that read salguod.net don’t show up here to see what new MT or HTML tweak I’ve come up with. 🙂
It’s supposed to be cold and generally miserable this weekend, which may give me time to post some more substantial stuff.

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