February 13, Reading 3 – Matthew 28

Reading

Audio, Visual

SAA Notes

He is risen! Every Sunday we remember this glorious event. Its light is to gladden every week and direct your paths into Christ’s ways. One practice over the centuries is to read from one of the four Gospel resurrection accounts each Sunday.

SJA Notes

* God Above, please draw us closer to You today through the reading of Your word.

“So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples.”

With fear and great joy!

See the outworking of the reality of Jesus here in His friends who were waiting at the tomb.

What hope they must have held dear in their hearts to sit and wait at the place where the body of Jesus was laid.

“And behold, Jesus met them and said, ‘Greetings!'”

Can you imagine this!

Such fulfillment of the hope, made real – Jesus alive and raised and talking with them.

Praise God, what a Saviour we have – Risen from the dead!

* Dear Father,

Please guide us each day, draw us onward to You, grow us more like Jesus every single day.

Thank You that He is indeed the risen Christ, our King and Saviour – That death could not defeat Him, but that He defeated death forever!

Amen.

February 12, Reading 3 – Matthew 27:45-66

Reading

Audio, Visual

SAA Notes

Amongst the many important issues and points raised in this passage, I would highlight this one: Jesus was forsaken by God the Father. He paid the penalty for my sin and yours. This is what the Bible calls the second death. (Revelation 2:11, 20:6,14, 21:8)

SJA Notes

* Loving God, thank You for giving us Your word that we can read each day. Please help us to understand more of You today.

“And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.”

How great a depth is in this verse alone.

To see the Son, God’s word become flesh, to see Him yielding up His Spirit.

It must have been a voice loud like no other voice heard before or since.

Because this is the Being who is the energy by which creation came about AND the energy that continues to sustain all things.

Look at what happens in response to this loud voice, this yielding – Strange events, happenings that cannot be explained through a mortal lens.

This is our King. He gave Himself up as a ransom for many, for us.

Praise God!

* Dear God,

We praise You, for You have saved us.

We praise Jesus, You the Son, what a Saviour!

Hallelujah!

Amen.

February 11, Reading 3 – Matthew 27:27-44

Reading

Audio, Visual

SAA Notes

These religious people believed that if Jesus was truly God’s Son then He could never die – God would stop it. We Australians are the same today – we get upset with God over unjust suffering. God takes Jesus’ willing though unjust suffering and uses it to break the power of sin – death itself!

SJA Notes

* Dear Lord God, please help us understand You a little better today, as we read of Your death on a cross to save us.

“And when they had crucified him, they divided his garments among them by casting lots.”

Matthew gives us here a multitude of horrible decisions and cruelty all wrapped up in a few verses.

The soldiers, the robbers, the chief priests, the scribes, the elders. They all mocked Jesus.

If He was so powerful, why can we kill Him?

They thought Him beaten and crushed (and He was) – But they didn’t understand what that meant, the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world.

They feared His power with the people, and knew their own fragile grip on power over the people could be gone in a moment.

They thought death would rid them of this pretender to their man-made thrones.

C.S. Lewis writes of Aslan and the White Witch in a very fitting mirror of the passage today,

“It means that though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards.”

We have a King who saves us by bringing new life, we can be born again into a life hidden in Him (our King).

Hallelujah, what a Saviour!

* Gracious Father,

Thank You that though there is great sin in this passage, we see Your grace and mercy greater still – Salvation for the sinner.

Thank You for sending Yourself, the Person of the Son, Jesus – Who was without fault yet took our punishment, laid on His shoulders.

Thank You for saving us.

Amen.