the God of the living...

Luke 20
36bThey are God's children, since they are children of the resurrection. 37But in the account of the bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord 'the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.' 38He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive."

Praise God!

Sabbath day...

Genesis 2
1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.
2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

John 19
30When he had received the drink, Jesus said, "It is finished." With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

It is striking to me that just as God rested after he had "finished" the work of creation, Jesus rested on the Sabbath after he finished the work of the cross. In fact, in reading through each of the Gospel accounts of Jesus' death and burial, only Matthew makes any comment about what happened on that Sabbath day. I have the excerpt listed below:

Matthew 27
62The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. 63"Sir," they said, "we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, 'After three days I will rise again.' 64So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first."
65"Take a guard," Pilate answered. "Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how." 66So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard.

So here we have the Pharisees who had called Jesus out for healing and picking grain to eat on the Sabbath, in a most hypocritical display, lobbying Pilate to further ensure that their hold and power over the Jewish people is not jeopardized by the possibility of a resurrection story. So, on the Sabbath, rather than resting and observing the day of rest as God commanded, the Pharisees are still plotting and scheming to put down the uprising of Jesus followers.

I hope you enjoyed this day and had a chance to rest. Not just physical rest, but spiritual rest...

Ponder the sorrow and pain and confusion that Jesus' disciples felt that night after observing the Sabbath...

With the next dawn came new life! In the words of the angels at the tomb, "He is not here; he has risen!"

He has risen indeed!

letter from new orleans...

I read an article today in Metropolis magazine about the project that Brad Pitt started in New Orleans called Make it Right. It's fascinating to me because it reminds me of the work that Architecture for Humanity is doing around the world. I loved this quote so much that I had to share it. Andrew Blum, a journalist for Metropolis quotes Steven Bingler, founder of Concordia Architecture & Planning, in New Orleans as saying, "If somebody designs a building that people don't want to live in, then I would argue that it's sculpture. And maybe that gets to the point about architecture's role in the twenty-first century: Are we going to continue to create monuments to ourselves, or are we going to start listening? Are we going to develop a different kind of respect?"

I'm glad I'm not the only one that feels this way. But man, are we in the minority.