Happy Easter! He is Risen!

[strokeofgenius]

Happy Easter, all!

Just got finished presenting a passion play that I do every year, with the church youth group I belong to.

It's the story of Christ's passion told through music. Very moving, very powerful.

It was a real roller-coaster of a year...so many ups and downs, so many highs and lows, a lot of good and not-so-good...in short, a year of many 'tests', and somehow we made it through. Told Christ's story in our special way, to our own little corner of the world. Many people were moved. Some very strong words of praise and love.

Not a bad way to spend lent, huh?

I just want to wish everyone a very happy easter and make a personal plea to "work hard at your faith." Let's face it, these are dark, dark times for the Church. (Boy, those priests really screwed up, didn't they...my prayers go out to all victims of these men who made every mistake and the book and I hope will really 'pay for it' eventually...)

It's so easy to get your faith shaken by what's going on in the church...just remember, this is the work of MAN, not God. And to all who say "Why didn't God stop it?"...my answer is, I dunno. Maybe he's trying to help heal thorugh things such as passion plays (hope that doesn't come across as ego...I just really feel we helped put something positive out there this year...)

His love and grace will endure, I really pray.

God bless everyone, and He is Risen!

 

[red indian]

Jesus saves!!!!!!!

but Strupar scores on the rebound.

 

[Tempus Fugit]

He is Risen! He is Risen indeed!

“I am trying here to prevent people from saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who is merely a man and said that sort of things that Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on the level with a man who says that he is a poached egg—or else he would be the devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or a madman or something worse. You can shut Him shut for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at his feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us, He did not intend to.”

“We are told that Christ was killed for us, that His death has washed out our sins, and that by dying He disabled death itself. That is the formula. That is Christianity.”

Mere Christianity
By
C.S. Lewis


Ponder the achievement of God.
He does not condone our sin, nor does He compromise His standards.
He doesn’t ignore our rebellion, nor does He relax His demands.
Rather than dismiss our sin, He assumes our sin and incredibly sentences Himself.
God’s holiness is honored. Our sin is punished…and we are redeemed.
God does what we cannot do so we can be what we dare not dream: perfect before God.

In the Grip of Grace
By Max Lucado


“Behold the Lamb of God who, who takes away the sin of the world.”
John 1: 29


One can go to the graveyard and take roll call:
“Buddha?” “Here.”
“Confucius?” “Here.”
“Muhammad?” “Here.”
But when one calls the name of Jesus Christ, the only answer will be an angel saying, “He is not here. He is Risen.” He is Risen indeed.


"What are you going to do with a dead man that walks?"

 

[shark]

Amen.

 

[red indian]

"A dead man that walks"?

Thats normally Bella Lugousi.

 

[Terra_Ascension]

God is All That Is and All That Is Not...God is even the stuff He Isn't! The greatest illusion is that of seperation...we are not seperate from each other, we are not seperate from Nature and we are certainly are not seperate from God! How can we be seperate from that which encompases ALL?
Food for thought:
We are created in God's image, yes?
Is God not The Supreme Creator?
If God is a creator...what does that make us if we are created in His image?
Does it not make us little CREATORS? "Mini-Gods"?
To see "proof" of this all you have to do is look around...you see houses, beds, computers...all MAN MADE things...things we CREATED as Creators! And then you see the work of The Supreme Creator...trees, oceans,mountains,stars,galaxies,universes and US...and He gave US three tools of creation to CREATE with...these are THOUGHT, WORD and ACTION. Think about anything that has been created...it was once a Thought, an Idea, a Vision...Thought being the First Level of Creation...then it was moved to The Second Level of Creation...Word...it was written down and spoken about...then finally it was DONE...Action being The Third Level of Creation...make sense?

Jesus Christ is God made Man, yet He is not the only Man made of God. For All Men are made of God! Our Souls are Divine and Holy...we are Unique Divine Aspects of God...each one of us a different, unique aspect....and yet we are all the same, and different at the same TIME 😉

TA

 

[dig dug dog]

strokeofgenius--

I appreciate your passion for your faith, but could you please reflect a bit before saying things like, "these are dark, dark times for the Church"? If you want to know about "dark times" take a look at what is happening to the Jewish people in its homeland. And this comes a mere 50 years after the Holocaust the horror of which one can't begin to describe. "Dark times?" I'd say it has been at least 1600 years since you guys had some really tough days (since Constantine made the Roman Empire Christian).

The darkest thing that can happen to the Church right now is to be so self-involved that it does not perceive the burning needs of God's people in Israel. There was so much more the Church could have done during World War II to resist Hitler. Will the opportunity once again be lost to aid and support the nation which gave birth to your Jesus? Your savior was Jewish; what are you doing today for the Jews?

 

[strokeofgenius]

It's all relative...

What's going in the church today (with all the scandals and molestation of young people by priests) does not compare to anything as maddening as the Holocaust or thousands of years of persecution for Jewish people...and it shouldn't. I was not attempting to compare the Church's latest dark page to anything like that, so don't make it out like I was.

But the fact remains, what's going on with the Catholic Church is yet another dark page in it's history. Maybe you don't call it "dark times" when the priesthood is on the verge of extinction, but I do. Maybe you don't consider it "dark" when many people have had their faith shaken to the core by a complete "stab in the back" by people who are supposed to be religious leaders, but I do. Maybe you don't consider it "dark" when the men who are supposed to serve the church members by saying mass and administering sacraments are on the verge of going the way of the dinosaurs, but I do.

Look, I admit, Catholics today are not living in a world where we are being fed to lions, like we were many years ago, but things are still rough. If you want to turn this into a "who's had it rougher" contest, then your team wins hands down. The Jews have been persecuted since the dawn of time.

As for turning a blind eye to other evils throughout the course of history, you'll get no argument from me there. The Church has screwed up more times than I care to think about. The Holocaust, slavery, ignoring evil regimes...(although I do think it's an interesting first step for the Pope to start apoligizing for all their screw-ups over the years...)

But the whole point of my last post was that all of this stuff about how "bad" the church is these days is all brought about by MAN. I was just trying to make a plea to all Catholics to do their best in standing firm with their faith in GOD, and to not let all these evil things that MEN have done ruin their faith in God and His Son. Make sense?

You ask what am I doing for the Jews...(good question...I'm not sure how to answer that, aside from saying that I try to respect their beliefs and not be an anti-semite like all those racist a**holes out there.)

Yes, Jesus is a jewish man and my savior...and remember that the jewish people are the ones who do not recognize Jesus as their savior...does that make them all doomed for eternity??...mmm, no, I don't think so. 'Course these are all questions too big for lil' old me to answer.

Allow me to let you in on one of the greatest struggles I have with my faith...Jesus said "I am the Way, the truth, and the Life. Noone comes through the father except through me." I struggle with that all the time...are only Christians on their way to Heaven?? I don't think God would reject a group of people who love and worship Him, even if they don't recognize His Son, do you?? What do you all think of this??

Anyway, Happy Easter. 🙂 I believe my savior rose for me today to save me from sin. (inhales deeply) 'S a good feeling. God Bless. 🙂

 

[TicklingDuo]

Happy Easter...and Good Pesach...to all our friends here on the TMF. While we don't all believe exactly the same way. The One in whom our faith rests is one. The Lord is God, the Lord alone. Praised be His holy Name!!!

Ann

 

[venray]

 

[CitY of MicA]

Ven- that is great! To quote Woody Allen in one of his New Yorker essays, "If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss bank."

 

[Strelnikov]

The old Jewish man made this prayer, for the 100th day in a row:

"God, I've tried to live my life according to Your will. Please, reward me and let me win the Lotto."

God, who was Almighty tired of it by then, finally replied,

"Isaac, meet me half way - buy a ticket!"


Strelnikov

 

[DutchTickler]

Hehe to an atheist like me Easter is all about those delicious chocolate easter eggs the easterbunny brings me! But have a good one anyway!

Oh it's over already.

 

[ReturntoGod]

RE:

Hello all. It's been a long while since I posted. I've been away for a long while. I stopped in to check on discussion and came across this thread.

It surprises me that people are questioning the dark times in the catholic church while others are comparing and debating this dark time to another evil period - Hitler's concentration camps.

It seems to me that you are arguing over two evils. What is the point in learning which is a greater evil. They are both evil and neither come from God. What is the point of debate. Are we trying to decide who was more evil at what date? Priests molesting children is evil. Jews being burned in human ovens is evil. Need there be one evil that surpasses the other. Need there even be debate. Are we claiming a greater sympathy for one victim or the other. We all, surely, can recognize both as evil.

Now we come to Jersalem and Palestine. The conflict has been long in the brooding. Take a step back from your moral and socialistic position and take a wide view of what is going on in the world right now. We are, without doubt, in very, very dark times. Not the Catholic Church, not the Jewish people, not anyone singularly but the world at large is a very dark place.

War is brooding and not just in one locale. We are looking a what very well may be a war on a scale such as the world has never seen. And the middle east is central.

If you are not afraid yet you're braver then I. The United States has nuclear weapons. Israel has nuclear weapons. Who the hell knows what Sadam Hussein has. Russia has been selling off it's nuclear components for years since it's downfall to middle east countries. We are looking at the possibility of a full scale world wide nuclear war.

At this point I really don't know what to say because I know that many of the people reading this are not affiliated with my religion (Roman Catholic). I don't know what to say without being judgemental or condescending. We all come from one God, no matter what limitations or criteria we try to place upon Him.

So I suppose I can only tell you what I think and believe and you can take it with a grain of salt or not at all. I believe, especially in light of world events, and have believed for a very long time that we are living in the end period of human existence. Years ago I saw the moral decay: prostitutes, pornography, drunkeness, homosexuality, kids murdering kids, rage, hate, etc, etc. It has grown worse and worse. And now, it seems to be coming to a head.

Beyond this I can attest to the Mother of God, the Virgin Mary, appearing many times in our world warning us of the events to come. Her visitations have been documented throughout history and she is now appearing in Medjugorje. She has given ten secrets to the visionaries which will happen in their lifetimes. They are the signs counting down to the end of days.

If you want to learn more about these things then visit my website at www.calltochrist.com

I will only say that I believe the moral offenses we have caused in the last hundred years are offenses against God. The end is coming and we need to prepare our souls. It all sounds very scary, but it shouldn't. We must always remember that our God is a God of love and mercy. This is the hour of mercy. Let us be converted now, before the hour of God's wrath.

Peace,
Scott

 

[qjakal]

Wrath and so forth...

Not to downplay the wrath of God, but try not to stay awake at night fearing those nuclear weapons NOT in the hands of the USA, because the odds of them ever being able to be used effectively against anyone are slim indeed. The technology to both maintain and deliver a nuclear payload is enormous! It takes resources that would strain all but the largest nations budgets, and to accurately (which is the key to not killing ones OWN country due to radiation from wind shifts) deliver this type of weapon calls for a superior air component in ones arsenal. Obviously this doesn't guarantee safety, but it places the chances of an Armageddon such as you envision into a category the British would title "not bloody likely"! Satellite recon and air surveillance are 2 of the items that are currently top priority for our military. Defense sysytems are being revamped and upgraded throughout our countries arsenal, and new innovative defense tactics are coming off the whiteboards rapidly and continuously....if we are to be destroyed, it will have to be by divine intervention, because the conventional weapons of the world shan't be up to the task.....perhaps with the current problems rending the Church, a cleaner organization may arise out of their moral ashes and be able to attract enough seekers to establish itself as the kind of power the Church has always had the potential to become. I try to look upon the times we live in as a test of our moral courage and hope that we, as both a nation, and an ideological group, can weather the temptations we endure to stomp on the perceived evildoers and perhaps turn them into productive members of a larger world society someday...talk about being a dreamer, hmm? Q

 

[Neutron]

God is a Myth

As is jesus. The bible is an interesting fictional novel. Maybe with a small shred of truth.

Nothing more, Nothing less

Tron

 

[evilqueen]

Qjakal, thank you for repeating the facts about nuclear payload and delivery here and in other threads. We are not facing WWIII, no matter how much anyone would like to see it, to justify whatever theory or mollify however many angry gods. And to want it for any reason is a sin against humanity, IMHO.

 

[JoBelle]

Just a little commentary....

I think DDD was making a good point even if it was one I gathered that he didn't mean to make...lol. The undercurrent today as it reflects on the Jewish faith brings to mind horrors that are beyond compare. (Yes, evil IS evil...but some things demand more attention than others) Given the political climate today, THAT is in the forefront of most folks' thoughts, no? It is the world stage. The Catholic situation is as well, but given that it doesn't involve Catholics being blown up by teenage girls with bombs strapped to them....well...anyway...we're not all Catholic, but we're all citizens of the world. THAT being said, there is a focus that deems merit from every citizen on the planet right now....and it's name is Israel.When children are used as bombs with legs.....well, I think it becomes more than apolitical exercise. What are YOU, the collective YOU doing to help? Just food for thought.

Scott's post hints at the "end of times" as I've heard it stated a million times. It reminds me of the people with the giant signs on street corners that say "THE END IS NEAR!" Sorry, but that defeated mentality irks the skin off!!!

Yes, we've the ability to destroy each other. Every generation in history has practiced that very trade. We've also got this terrible thing called a "will to survive." "Self Preservation" comes to mind as well. People in powerful places didn't get there in the interest of the masses...they came to places of power for egotistical reasons. Those egotists are not going to risk losing their cushy place in the world. Ex. Arrafat.....now calling on the international forces to help him. Uh huh....martyr, my ass. LOL

Nationalism maty be the mother of war, but my own heartbeat is going to be the downfall of it.

So...to the meaning of the post...Happy Easter to those who celebrate it...and Happy Passover as well...all a little late.
Jo.

 

[dig dug dog]

Dear ReturntoGod,

You misunderstood the point of the dispute between strokeofgenius and myself. It was NOT over which act is more evil--murder or child molestation. It was over whether the Christian or Catholic Church is going through a dark, difficult period right now.

My point was that some Christians are so self-absorbed that they have no perspective on what really constitutes terrible times. That is why I brought up the Holocaust, but Israel's current difficulties would make the same point just as well.

I put the same question to you, Scott, as I put to him: As a religious Christian, what are YOU doing today for the Jewish people? The time to act and speak up on their behalf is now.

dig dug dog