On this Maundy Thursday, in particular, let the “for you” of Christ’s gifts dominate.

Simon carried the cross, but Jesus was carried by the cross to death.

Out there the instincts to protect yourself from embarrassment, ridicule, and rejection can easily overcome you as they did Peter. Our only hope is in Peter’s Lord.

Betrayed. It is a word which chills the soul and sickens the stomach. To be betrayed is to have a friend turn on you, treating you as an enemy.

It is good to remember that this true story, is also beautiful.

The Lord sees the blood of the Lamb upon us, but does not merely pass over us in mercy. He passes into us by grace.

Passion Week preaching is not simply preaching about the events leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion but to announce to the world how through this single death, sins are answered for, and God is reconciled with humanity.

Preaching the inseparability of Jesus and Jerusalem is to proclaim God’s Messiah and the fulfillment of the Scriptures.

Tomorrow Jesus will laugh his way out of the tomb, spit in the face of death, and kick the devil in the throat as he dances to the clapping glee of angelic masses. But today he just rests.

You can’t bear your own sins, to say nothing of getting rid of them.

Each day gives us occasion to die to our sinful identities of all kinds and to live out a life in Christ’s footsteps as children of God.

Golgotha is the point where not only Mary and John’s family life assumed a new character, but it is the point of orientation for all human community that uses the cross to straighten out the lives of individuals turned in upon themselves.