WHO

I believe in God.  An omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent God.  An eternal God without beginning or end of days.  He always was and always will be.

You cannot prove it scientifically either way.  You believe or you do not believe.

I believe God created the universe and everything in it. Science is busy trying to find out exactly when and how and they are quite close.  I understand they have traced/calculated the universe back to about 1 millionth/1 billionth (???) of a second after the "Big Bang" occurred but not quite to the initial point of the Big Bang itself.  They know roughly how old the universe is and a great deal more about it than I can understand.  Even after reading Stephen Hawking's "A Brief Moment in Time".

Why do I believe God created the Universe and everything in it?  

Because of all the Laws which govern how everything behaves.  Whether physics, chemistry, biology (and every sub-sector within these disciplines), there are certain laws which govern how things happen.  Science is about discovering and understanding these laws.  Physicists have the tough ones as they get out to the edges of the universe and deep inside the workings of sub-atomic particles.  The laws of genetics ensure continuity from generation to generation AND provide enough variation for selection (natural and human assisted) and even for evolution.

Engineers of all stripes take advantage of all the known laws, harnessing them to design and construct various and sundry amazing things. Like cars and rockets and computers and artificial hearts and bridges and electrical grids and . . .

Whenever there are Laws, there must be a Law Giver. Someone who laid down the order by which the universe and everything in it unfolds.

You cannot prove it scientifically either way. You believe or you do not believe.  I believe.

Easter

Easter is one of the two holiest days of all Christian Churches, the other of course being Christmas.  The birth, life and death of Christ brought salvation to the world through redemption from sin.  According to Hebraic Law, blood sacrifice was necessary for forgiveness from sin.  Although the most perfect lamb was chosen, being biological of course, it could not be PERFECT.  Consequently the sacrifice was good for one year only.

Jesus was the "Perfect Lamb of God" without spot or blemish in his life from beginning to end, so was the perfect sacrifice for complete forgiveness for all time.  John 3:16 sums up the whole issue.

My Iowa cousin, Alice, made reference to Maundy Thursday in a recent email.  I had to confess to not being familiar with the days of Holy Week which lead up to Easter Sunday.  I am familiar with the Tuesday before Lent, celebrated by the British with wild pancake parties and by the more sensible folk as Mardi Gras.  Alice sent me the following explanation which I thought was excellent.

On Palm Sunday, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the back of a colt-ass.   His 12 disciples followed him, and the people who tended to believe in his teaching, preaching, and miracles that they had been seeing & hearing, waved palm branches, laid their cloaks down on the ground before him, and hollered "Hosanna!"  Which means roughly, "Lord, save us!"  They didn't understand the kind of kingdom he came to establish.  (Hey, I don't understand all of it yet either!)   

 

While this was happening there were people watching who didn't like him & his message. (They didn't understand it either.)  The Roman soldiers were standing around, making sure there was no trouble, no religious rebellion or insurrections, anything like that.  And the Pharisees, the head honchos of the Jewish people /temple in the city, were afraid that this self-proclaimed King was gonna take away their power.

 

By Thursday, the general mood of the people in Jerusalem was going downhill.  The place was crowded because of the Passover, the celebration of when the Angel of Death passed over the homes of the Hebrews when they were enslaved in Egypt  several hundred years before, when God chose Moses to lead them out.  The last plague was that the first born of every household would die that night, when the Angel of Death moved thru the city, but the Hebrews were instructed to sacrifice a perfect lamb and to use a brush of hyssop (fragrant plants) to paint blood from the sacriced lamb onto their door frames.   The Angel of Death would pass over those houses with blood on the doors.   This event became a feast, celebrated annually by the Jews, and they came to Jerusalem from all Israel to  celebrate, if at all possible.

 

On Thursday, Jesus did some teaching.   He gave the final form of the commandments of God.  (First, there were something like 603...not sure of the exact figure right now...but there were LOTS of commandments in the early days to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the patriarchs of the faith.  Second, they were pared down to 10 commandments when Moses received them on Sinai, during the Exodus.  Jesus further pared them down to one-maybe-two:  Love the Lord thy God with all your heart, mind, and soul, and love one another.)   The term MAUNDY comes from the same root word as COMMANDMENT........either Latin or Greek....can't remember right now for sure. But it is MANDATORY (another word from that root) that we love God and one another.

 

 Jesus held a Passover feast in the Upper Room of a home.  He invited his 12 disciples, and he did something quite unusual:  instead of having a servant wash the feet of his guests, he did it himself, which taught us servanthood.  Peter that night taught us humility & submission.........I'd really rather wash my own feet & he felt that way, too. 

 

 During the feast, Jesus instigated the practice that would become The Last Supper, Holy Eucharist, Communion, referring to himself as the Perfect Lamb who would lay down his life in sacrifice for all the sins of all mankind for all time..........The Father's perfect plan to overcome the imperfections experienced by humanity ---and even our most grievous & terrible sins---since the Fall from Grace in the Garden.