Salvogesis

‘My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me’ Psalm 22:1: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?   Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? Matthew 27:45-46: From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli lema sabachthani?” (Which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”). Psalm 22:2-3 My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, but I find no rest. Mark 16:19: After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God. Psalm 22:3 Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One; you are the one Israel praises. Matthew 21:4-9: This took place to fulfil what was spoken through the prophet:   “Say to Daughter Zion, ‘See, your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’” The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. They bro

I remember many years ago when I was starting University. I was a janitor; I worked nights for a big janitorial company in Victoria. They have buildings all over the city and I worked for this company since before I went to university so when I did go back to school, they were kind enough to work around my schedule. They made me a ‘floater’: now a floater is a very important position because we are given the keys and alarm codes to banks and other important businesses all over the city and our shifts often end late at night or early in the morning. Now break-ins aren’t uncommon in the city so one doesn’t want just anybody walking around some of these buildings in the middle of the night. I remember one night. I’m on ‘floater’ duty. I have four buildings to clean. The first two buildings take me twice as long to clean as they should so when I get to my third building, it is well passed midnight and I have never been in this building before and I can’t find the light switch anywhere.

There is this boy. He starts out writing a letter to Santa but then realizes that he will get better results if he writes directly to the Lord. So he writes: ‘Dear Santa (crossed out). ‘Dear Jesus, I have been good for six months; please give me what I want for Christmas.’ He thinks a minute. Crosses it out and writes, ‘Dear Jesus, I have been good for one month; please give me what I want for Christmas.’ He thinks a minute. Crosses it out and writes, ‘Dear Jesus, I have been good for a week; please give me what I want for Christmas.’ He thinks a minute. Crosses it out and writes, ‘Dear Jesus, I have been good for a whole day; please give me what I want for Christmas.’ He thinks a minute and as he is thinking, he spies a nativity scene. He walks over to it. He picks up the statue of Mary and he walks back over to his desk. He places her in front of him; he picks up his pen again and he writes, ‘Dear Jesus… if you ever want to see your mother again…give me what I want for Christmas’[1]

MOVE DAY: Not that many weeks after Easter, The Salvation Army will announce its 'moves' - who in this organization is going to be transferred to where across this country. At the last supper, when Judas left the room the eternal moves were announced, so to speak. Jesus let his disciples know that the time is coming and is actually now here when Jesus will move from them. He has a new appointment. He informs them of this and gives some instructions and a number of his disciples take this opportunity during the last supper here to ask Jesus a bit about the move. They inquire about where he is going. Picture this with me. Jesus and his disciples are having dinner upstairs in a rented room in Jerusalem. Jesus has conversations with John and Judas and then Jesus knows, allows, enables, prompts or even provokes Judas to move to do what he is going to do. This will be Jesus’ last evening with his closest disciples: the twelve, now the eleven. After Judas leaves, Jesus turns to hi

BILL AND ALEX: I  remember once when I was teenager there was ice on the roads. I know that’s not too memorable around these parts but on the Island that was a big deal. Alex, a friend of mine, showed up at my house in the middle of the night once when we were teenagers and the two of us took our cars to the university parking lot where he would show me one way teenage boys could have fun in the icy weather: he would drive quickly on the iced-over parking lot and then slam on the breaks put his car into a spin. I sat and watched in my car. He then came over to my car and showed me how to do the same thing. He had a 1975 Chevy Nova and I had a 1974 Pontiac Ventura at this point. These were basically the same car and we often used the parts from one car to repair the other because it was rare when we could actually both afford to have a car on the road at the same time. So now we were having a great time just racing and spinning our cars around and round in circles in the parking lo