Salty Zebra

  And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, saw how he died, he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God!”   Mark 15:39  What was it the centurion saw that convinced him that Jesus was God’s Son? This scripture tells us that the centurion confessed this after he saw how Jesus died. I don’t think it was the moment of Jesus’ passing* that impressed this truth on the bystanders, but all that they had witnessed leading up to it. So, what was different about how Jesus died?   Perhaps the centurion first saw Jesus as He was led to Pilate, bloodied and bruised from the beating He had received from the high priest’s guards and compatriots. Perhaps he was in the room when Pilate questioned Jesus and Jesus remained silent before him, as a sheep before the slaughter ( Isaiah 53:7 ) except when He was asked outright if He was the king of the Jews and Jesus confessed only that Pilot had said it was true. Scripture tells us that Pilate was amazed that Jesus re...

  Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” John 11:25-26  Who am I? I am a wife, a mom, a follower of and believer in Christ. I am a traveler, a writer, a lover of coffee. None of these are necessarily physical attributes, and yet, when I think of death, the first thing that comes to mind is a natural, physical death. That is what has made these verses so difficult for me to grasp.   From the moment I wake up in the morning, I feel the reality of my physical body. I spend the better part of most days taking care of that body – feeding it, cleansing it, trying to decrease it’s pain. I use my physical body for so much, even writing this post. And yet, my physical body does not represent all, or even most of me. Who I am, like I mentioned before, is made up of relationships, interests, thoughts and dreams. None of these are...

  Then he said to them all, “If anyone wants to become my follower, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me will save it.”   Luke 9:23-24  Jesus ushered in His upside-down kingdom. In it, whoever would like to be first must be last. Whoever loses their life for Jesus’ sake will save it. It went contrary to everything the religious institutions stood for. It defined true success and happiness and divested the clergy of all of their perceived power and uniqueness. Turns out that God loves everyone and wants us all to come to Him and live in relationship with Him. Instead of it being a select few that acted just right in public and gave lots of money to the temple, God actually saw value in prostitutes and tax collectors as well, if not even more so because they were capable of seeing their need for God and appreciate His grace and provision for them.   Pe...

  The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:14  As I was vacuuming the living room this morning, I was thinking about Christmas coming up. I was considering where I should place my Christmas tree this year. I was wondering if my daughter would be able to come home for a day or two to help me decorate. I was up late last night working on Christmas gifts for my family. It’s still October, and yet I’ve got Christmas in my heart! I can’t help but wonder if the last four weeks of studying God’s faithful love for us throughout the Old Testament have been preparing my heart for this. But, just as the world was both perfectly ready and completely clueless when Jesus arrived, I feel the same way about our celebration of this wonder that is fast approaching.  God taught us to mark special occasions and important memories with celebration. No, there ar...

   On our way home from the beach Sunday evening, I told my husband that I would like to stop by our favorite little hole-in-the-wall restaurant and get some celebratory milkshakes, a way to mark our thanks to God for giving my husband a job. He thought this was a little strange since he has not yet gotten a job, but I insisted that I wanted to thank God and celebrate in advance because I knew  without a doubt that God has things lined up perfectly and has just the right job in store for him at just the right time.   To be honest, I'm kind of hoping that God put this on my heart because it's coming soon, my husband's new job. It's been a rough road of late and we'd both really like him to be employed. God has provided wonderfully and abundantly for us, we're not short on money or stressed about how we will pay our bills. It's just that my husband really  feels like he wants to have a job. The idea of his job being finding a job has worn off and to say he is...

  I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy. I will shepherd the flock with justice.   Ezekiel 34:16  Many (Most? All?) of the prophecies in the Old Testament had both a near-term fulfillment as well as a future, eschatological one. What is eschatological you might ask? According to Wikipedia (because I couldn’t get webstersdictionary1828.com to load up) it, “concerns expectations of the end of present age, human history, or the world itself.” So, many of the prophecies in the Old Testament referred to something that would happen soonish, like within the next few hundred years, as well as something that would happen closer to the end of the world itself. In this case, the prophecies in Ezekiel referred to the people of Israel being freed from Babylon and returned to their home in about 70 years. When Ezekiel was talking about the wicked shepherds at the beginn...

  He was wounded because of our rebellious deeds, crushed because of our sins; he endured punishment that made us well; because of his wounds we have been healed. [Isaiah 53:5 NET]  There are lots of ways I could approach today’s SOAP verse, in fact it took me two days to settle on where I wanted to go with it. There is SO MUCH in Isaiah 53 , and I think this was the first time I had read it in the NET version. What made it different? The language used in this translation was more in line with the physical than the emotional or spiritual. For example, in Isaiah 53:3 most versions say, “A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” The NIV takes a slightly different approach and says, “a man of suffering, and familiar with pain,” but the NET goes further in this ‘physical’ direction saying, “one who experienced pain and was acquainted with illness.” Now that’s an aspect of Jesus that I had never heard nor considered. Yes, of course I know He experienced great pain leading up ...