Sermon Scripture For Sunday, April 9th: Luke 23:50-56 & 24:1-11
Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, February 22. This is a season in the church calendar to reflect and take stock of our sinfulness and to encounter God’s grace. We must consider both. Not just God’s love. Not just our rejection of God. Both our rejection of God and God’s response of love to that rejection. On Sunday mornings, beginning on February 26, we will spend the 7 weeks, including Easter, working through the last week of Jesus Christ, in Luke 19:28 – 24:11.
FBCScottsdale began its Lukan journey in December 2021 with the birth narratives in Luke 1-2. This included the foretelling of the births of John the Baptist and Jesus; then those births, and the reaction to them. We continued in Luke a few months later in the spring of 2022 with Jesus’ teaching in Galilee. We read through His parables—the good Samaritan, the fig tree, lost sheep and coin, others. We returned to Luke last fall with Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem. These passages included hard sayings by Jesus as He made His way to the cross.
Now we conclude our multi-year study of Luke with his conclusion, the end of Jesus’ earthly life, looking at the text initiating Palm Sunday through to Easter morning and Resurrection. Please join us as we journey with Jesus to the cross and the empty tomb in The Last Week of Jesus Christ.
WHY IS THE CROSS DRAPED WITH THAT COLOR?
The drapery of the cross is a Christian tradition to commemorate important events in the life of Jesus. Several colors are associated with Easter and have deep symbolic meanings in Christian contexts.
Three different colors of fabric are used in draping the cross during the Easter season (beginning with Palm Sunday and continuing through His Ascension to Heaven): purple, black, and white.
On Palm Sunday, we will drape the cross in purple fabric, which represents Jesus' royalty - it signifies the importance of Jesus Christ entering Jerusalem as King.
On Good Friday, we will drape the cross in black fabric, representing the death of Jesus Christ as full payment for the sins of all mankind.
On Easter Sunday, we will drape the cross in white. The white draping represents the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
The empty cross is a reminder to all the world that "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16).
