Don’t you love being sick? I hate it
I was looking forward to getting into work on Tuesday, and discussing and thanking God for a great Easter, and all that that entails for us as a church with follow up and such.
But my body had different plans and I was up all night……with bad stomach cramps and other undesirable things…

Doctor says it is not related to appendix, just lucky I guess…..

Some worrying signs for the Dockers today.
Pavlich was out of sorts…and thats okay, but it was compounded by the fact that the team seemed to have an innane need to kick to Pav, even when he was surrounded by three Pie players. We have to learn that with so many good forward players, we dont have to be Pav-centric. In fact as the game was being lost in the middle, Pav went into the centre, and while it was not so much Pav’s influence in the middle, so much as players going long to McPharlin which helped us.

In the end there were to many passengers, players who are good, not putting in the required four quarter effort. I thought with the Pies cramping up during the third, we were in with a real chance during the fourth, but it was not to be. The Pies enthusiasm and young energetic players keep the ball down in their half.

Just a word on Mark Johnson…..sigh. I watched him during the practice match and was less than impressed with his effort and speed. Today…sigh. I really hope Harvey does not persist with him at the expense of Palmer, and Warnock.

Great to see Bell, McManus, Hayden and Sandilands play well.

We had a ‘good’ service today.
A reflective time, with space for thinking and meditating.
Jim did an awesome rendition of “There is a Green Hill” with Eliot playing the tune “House of the Rising Sun”…..Jim is a senior man, and not in the best of health, but he sung this so well, a real moving moment.

We remembered Jesus together during communion, and I painted the picture of our spiritual heritage…coming as it does from the Israelite people. In particular I spoke about the Last Supper, and how Jesus transformed the Passover into what we now call communion. I bought a big loaf of flat bread, and a bottle of wine….and shared this

Passover is the oldest and most important religious festival in Judaism, commemorating God’s deliverance of the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt and his creation of the Israelite people. This feast was what Jesus and His disciples were celebrating during the last supper.
It was on that fateful night when Judas betrayed Jesus, that after Judas had left the room, Jesus transformed Passover into what we celebrate today, communion.
Communion today is very special as we realize that our spiritual heritage goes right back to the people of Israel, to that time that God rescued his people from slavery….today we celebrate communion on good Friday.
The primary symbol of Passover is the matzo, a flat, unleavened “bread” which recalls the hurriedly-baked bread that the Israelites ate after their hasty departure from Egypt.
The leader would have prepared the bread in three parts….he took the second part of the bread and broke it, saying that it represented the pain and affliction of the people.
When Jesus had the last Passover with his disciples, he took the second piece of bread and said this is my body, broken for you…Jesus took upon Himself the pain and affliction of his people.
Let us take this bread and eat it and remember the pain and affliction Christ took on Himself for us.
(Families help children)
At the Passover there were four cups of wine.
Freedom, Deliverance, Redemption, and Thanksgiving
The third cup represented the redemption of Gods people who would come through the promised Messiah.
It was during the third cup that Jesus held the cup up and said, this is my blood shed for you….He is the Messiah the Israelites were looking for, He is our Messiah, our Saviour…the one we are looking forward to seeing again…which is why we say that we celebrate this until He comes…
(explain grape juice, family friendly, please help your children)

Afterwards my wife had prepared a stack of hot cross buns with butter…it was nice to relfect with people afterwards and to remember what this day is all about, the most important day in our Christian calender.

Here are a couple of snippets from my message I am going to give on Easter Sunday.

The reason we cant, or dont, show the Passion movie in church, particularly when children are in the service, is because it is so graphic in its accurate portayal of what happened to Christ on Good Friday. It was such an awful, injust and dehumanising event to be crucified, and Jesus suffered at the hands of people who hated Him. The Bible says He was scarred, ripped raw, bleeding for our transgressions.
Now the point is, why did He suffer so much? Well the standard Sunday School answer is that He suffered so much because of us, for our sins.
What we have to come to grips with is the fact that the Cross was so awful, because it demonstrates the awfulness of our sin. It demonstrates so clearly that our rebellion against God is something which is truly abhorent. To deny God is the most awful thing….and the awful things which happened to Christ demonstrates this.

(next I speak about Kevin Rudd’s apology and how it is a illustration of how Christ, in effect, said sorry to God for us, Christ took responsibility for our sin)

Each one of us is responsible for what we do with God, it is up to us, we have free will, in how we respond to God