From the Pastor:

 

HOLY WEEK: THE CRUCIFIXION

 

They took Jesus to a place called "Golgotha" which simply means "The Place of the Skull". Perhaps the little hill on which He was crucified looked like a human skull. This we do know: it was the place of the gallows, a place of execution. That could have given the place its name.

 

Adding to the indignity of His execution was not only the fact that Jesus was made to carry His cross (although Simon of Cyrene carried it from the city gates to the place of death itself), but when His cross was lifted, He hung there between two criminals. They were the worst sort. Men who lived violent lives. Men who had no respect for the law. Men who did not care about the lives of others and how much pain and suffering they might  inflict upon them. You see, Christ was not only crucified next to them, but between them, and with them.

 

Now we see clearly: there is Jesus, our Lord, now also a robber, an adulterer, a murderer,  one who curses, a man of violent and shameful behavior. All this, all of the sins of those two men between whom His cross stood, and all of our sins too, the unspotted Lamb of God must bear. We must see on His shoulders all of our guilt.

 

Then Jesus said, "Father, forgive them." His heart was so full of the fire of love that not even the cruelty He was suffering could smother its flames. He acted as if He did not even feel or experience the pain and the shame of the moment. Instead He was only thinking of our sins and of God's judgement and of our need to be forgiven.

 

That is why at that moment Jesus turned to the one repentant man crucified with Him, and He forgave him. He opened to him the gate of heaven, of His Kingdom. We can now call this man the "First Saint of the New Testament: Saint Dysmas." Now we too can become Christians like him.

 

Pastor David M. Albertin

Welcome to

New Tracy, IN

8705 S 100 E

 WORSHIP SERVICE SUNDAY @ 9:00 AM.

HOLY WEEK WORSHIP @ 6:30 PM:

MAUNDY THURSDAY April 17 and

GOOD FRIDAY April 18.