A TIME OF PASSION

The passion referred to is not the kind associated with romance, but is the kind associated with intense feeling, for this is the season of the Passover and the cruxifixction of Christ.

Biblical scholars disagree on the day of the murder of our Lord, whether it be Thursday or Friday, since the calendars used differ and whether the Jewish 'day' started at evening or noon. Even the gospels differ, yet it is clear that the disciples felt an intense loss.. Their Lord, who had called them to him and had lived and traveled with him, had been taken, held prisoner, tortured and tried by a "kangaroo' court. --A time of intense feeling.

"With bleeding back, carrying His cross under the heat of the now almost midday sun, He [Jesus] journeyed up the rugged heights of Golgotha. Reaching the appointed place of execution, His hands and feet were nailed to the tree. For three hours He hung there with the pitiless rays of the sun beating down [on] His thorn-crowned head. This was followed by the three hours of darkness, now over. That night and that day were hours into which an eternity was compressed." --Arthur W. Pitt

No other single event has had such an impact on the history of man and civilization.

This man who had been prophesied to come, preached forgiveness and love;

healed the blind and lame and taught us to love one another; to love and forgive our enemies and to pray for them. The "Price of Peace" was killed.

There are those who come in his name today and preach war, revenge, torture and

killing, yet they are not his servants and preach the same as his his Jewish killers. When the Pharisees, Scribes and Lawyers, all of who he called "hypocrites and vipers" claimed they were the sons of Abraham, he decried "if you are the sons of Abraham, do the deeds of Abraham"

This man, later identified by the scriptures as the Son of God, denounced much of the Jewish dogma, such as "an eye for an eye. .". Before Jesus, the system of might made right prevailed, but he changed the world by preaching devine love.

With Love and Kindness,

THE H