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Matthew Devotion 28:18,19

"... All authority has been given unto me... Go!..."

Jesus rose and now reigns over all powers - seen and unseen - and imparts to us that same authority.

This authority has nothing to do with education, experience, training, desires, gifts, personality temperaments, past sins, or human DNA. It has everything to do with the Gift he gives us.

Through believing in his Life, Death, and Resurrection we receive the forgiveness of our sins and the promise of never dying. When that Salvation is sealed with the Holy Spirit, God also gives us the same authority that Jesus had - an authority is needed for the task given us. Without it we cannot love. Without it we cannot reveal Life. Without it nothing we do for the Lord will last. It is essential and given us the moment we leave the stone shelf and walk into the Easter Mist. It happens the moment we leave our grave clothes aside and walk into the Blaze of the New Day.

This is the New You. The Person everyone now sees. Old things have passed. Behold! All things have become new!

The authority of the Spirit is a bit like placing a police uniform on a bum. In his previous state, the bum may have walked into the street, held up his hand, and immediately get smeared by oncoming traffic. In his gifted state, however, the bum can now walk into that same street and - simply, with the raising of one white-gloved hand - cause an entire freeway to cease to a halt.

Spiritual authority is recognized by just about everybody.

Jesus has commissioned you to go out and tell others about who he is and what his doing. This is his Will for your life. He has done everything to make it easy for you. He has prepared the people to hear your words. He has surrounded you with people already like you, who understand your uniqueness - your tongue to them - and actually like you!  He has bestowed upon you all the Authority and Love needed to do all it takes.

All you have to do it raise your white-gloved hand.

Use it to bind. Use it to unbind. Use it to stop the enemy. Use it to lay hands on the sick. Use it to do everything the Jesus did. You are his Body now, his Sanctuary, his Voice to the Lost.  Make no mistake, he is still doing the exact same things he was when he was here before - you know, healing the sick, raising the dead, revealing the Almighty Love of the Father in word and deed. Only now, he is using you to do it.

"All authority being given Me" is, by default, "all authority given to us," since we are no less members of the his Body than he is of the Godhead. The authority is a garment bestowed upon us by Grace alone - by his Will alone - and has nothing to do with how one feels about him or herself.

"Sainthood"  is a status, not a level of personal achievement, after all.

So ignore the voices which speak against using you the fulfillment of the Great Commission. "I am not good enough... I am not a Priest... I am not worthy... I have nothing to say... It's hasn't been long enough since my last sin... They will reject me..."  and all the other cluttering echoes rising from the defeated the Pit. They no longer have power over you. Rise up in faith, snap the Serpentine Spell with your heal, and walk out of Tomb with Christ into the Will of the New Day.

Make disciples around the world, baptize them in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and invite them to join you in observing everything Jesus has taught and commanded.

And, through it all, rest assured that that God will never leave you or forsake you. Both his authority and his Ever-Loving Presence will continuously cloak you - within and without -   "even to the end of the age."

Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your Name. Amen.

Matthew Devotion 28:9

"... Rejoice.."

Jesus declared his authority over the Womb in the Incarnation, his Lordship over the Old Covenant in his baptism, the fulfillment of Messianic Prophecies in his life;  absolute authority over the Law when dealing with the Pharisees and Sadducees, his authority over sickness in his healing ministry. His Cosmic Authority over all Created Order was established by stilling the seas and walking on the water, his authority over the Demonic Realms by the banishment of evil spirits; his unconditional love and authority to forgive us all our sins - regardless how grievous or repetitious they may forever be - by the giving of his life for our eternal welfare.

Now, the last remaining stronghold to be conquered is the Serpentine's Spell, Death itself - which he - "oh, as a matter-of-factly" - he broke when, in the clearing of the early Easter Mist, the earth quaked, his flesh was infused with New Life in the Holy Spirit, and he slipped free from the garments of death and, with his first baby steps of New Life, crushed the skull of the snake with the heel of his foot, forever rendering it powerless.

It happens.

"Rejoice!" The heavens lit up - as they did at the birth of the Same. Angel's mounted, racing to the Battlefield to proclaim to the Never-Again Captives - amazed and perplexed -  "He is not here; for he has risen!"

Now there is nothing in our human experienced untouched by the Finger of God. All Created Order (physical, emotional, spiritual, experiential - everything we know and ever will know) is privy to God's Glorious Redemption found in the Rising of the Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing is out of bounds, not even death itself.  There is nothing left to do but to join the company of Angels - regardless of our situation, in the fact of a certain Future Redemption - and say, "Rejoice!"

In rising from the dead Jesus is established as the King of all Kings and the Lord of all Lords over every human experience.

A rich man rolled the Stone to seal the embalmed Body; an angel rolled away that same Stone - not to set our Lord free from the Tomb (as if he couldn't pass through matter in his resurrected state!), but to show us that our last enemy has been conquered. The sweet fragrance, resurrection's afterglow, has now been released into all Creation.

And - perhaps more significant for us - his resurrection in the Tombs of our Hearts assures us both of his present forgiveness/ healing and the certain afterlife when we too, following the trajectory of the Second Adam, will also ease from our grave clothes into a eternal state of New Life on that great and glorious Day.

The angel sits atop the Stone and invites the onlooker to peek into the Heart of the Matter. The women are filled with both fear and joy. Following the angel's instructions, they run to tell the disciples and, while on the run, run smack-dab into Jesus. With a single gaze he had read their mail and meets the exact emotions of their hearts. "Do not be afraid."  He can say that because has disarmed Death (the Patriarch of all fear) and thus, in him - as we remain in him - there is no fear.

"Rejoice!"

Don't try to analyze the event. You will never arrive. True spiritual understanding comes when we simply bless the blossoming works of God with an unhindered, child-like, belief.

"Rejoice!"

Matthew Devotion 27:60

"... he laid the body in his new tomb which he had hewn out of the rock..."

As the rich man from Arimathea - who hewed a new tomb from rock, took care to wrap the incoming Christ, and rolled the stone over its entrance; as the poor Virgin Mary - who prepared for the Incarnation in her Womb through purifying her heart, received the greeting of the Angel, and took conceived Christ in her own, Virgin Tomb - so that same Christ is laid to rest in our hearts when they have been prepared through personal devotion, hewn out of our hearts of stone, and made clean.

Many of us would invite the Deadened God into tombs that reflect the ghoulish backdrop of this narrative. Our wet floors slippery with the fungus from the drippings from our sinful stalactites, the corners of our caverns all but hidden by webs of deception, the stagnate air musky with the stench of yellow mold.

But we are to prepare a Way for the coming of the Lord, are we not? Have we not been called to make a place prepared for the Lord? Sure! We have a Divine Directive to raise the valleys and lower the mountains and welcome the Son of God into a heart that has been, to the best of our ability, paved with Holiness, curbed with the Fruit of Repentance.

As Mary (sitting opposite the tomb) watched the rich man carefully wrap her boy in clean linens, she too could remember when she had done the same. As the rich man laid the Lifeless God onto the stone shelf, she could remember the times when she too had tucked him into the manger, closing the door behind. From her Womb to his Tomb. From the Wood of the Manger to the Wood of the Cross. All had been full-circled around to this eerie place. It was a heart-ripping, saddening completion - to be sure, eerie - but, all the same, the completion of a Divine Visitation that would never, nor could ever, be fully understood.

Neither Mary nor the rich man knew the end of the Story. The were content to prepare their tombs and humbly be ready for the incoming Christ. They had no real idea of his resurrection, and how it would radically change their lives forever. For now,  their obedience was good enough.

May we have that same faith - the Faith of a Child - that we, being cleansed and made new by the indwelling Christ, would prepare the Caverns of our Souls to equally welcome the Crucified Christ.

Matthew Devotion 27:46

"... My God, My God, why have you forsaken me..."

Jesus was told right up front that he was God's beloved Son, "with whom I am completely blessed." (Matthew 3:17). He was told those same words mid-way through his ministry. "Listen to him!" (Matthew 17) He was affirmed as the Son of God, One with the Father, in complex relationship with the Father and the Spirit, throughout his entire life. There was no doubt that Jesus was God's Son.

Yet today, in the bleakest of days, he hangs questioning everything he has ever known.

Somewhere deep inside, he knows who he is in God's will. But today his experience couldn't speak more contrary. Yet he still calls God, "MY God." Though God had forsaken him. Jesus doesn't forsake his God. Though a "Forsaken God," still his God all the same.

No matter what.

Our darkest experiences, our greatest pains, our most disorientating chaos do nothing to remove, deny, or intimidate the Lordship of Christ, nor his Sacred History in our life. He reigns on the Peaks. He remains in the Valleys. He is not shaken by Creation's Doubt, but is drawn all the more into it in order to resurrect the remains of the Day. At our worse, he is his best. At our best, he is still his best. Independent and blended. He remains faithful, when we are not.

As we follow Jesus into his crucifixion we will also utter these same words, "My God... Why have you forsaken me?" They need to be uttered, to be believed, or it is not a true crucifixion.

They need not be said in guilt, believing that God becomes something less than God when we voice our angst questioning whether he even still exists. It is in our complete unraveling that God drapes us in his Glory. We have finally come to the Cross, as did our Lord. We have finally voiced our deepest fears - that God has left the House. We have nothing more.

We have been Crucified.

Matthew Devotion 27:28

"... and they stripped him..."

They did more than that. They beat him, mocked him, punched him the face. They placed a scarlet robe on him, a crown of thorns on his head. They played games and pretended he was the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

Little did they know he was putting up with their tortuous game-playing so that one day he would become their Imaginary Friend.

And in the rage of their passion - through the cat-o-nine whipping, and mockery - Jesus loved them. With each slicing in his back they (meaning a portal for all Fallen Creature-hood) became increasingly loved. Each drop of blood which drained the Son of God - when seen through the puffy, beaten eyes of our Savior - provided, within Itself, the synergistic where-with-all to continue in the Father's Will.

Seeing the Blood on the stone pavement gave Jesus a more Passionate Resolve to go to the Cross. Our faces were in the reflection of those Drops. And that kept he going. He knew that one day we would be gazing back at him, through those same Drops, exalting him as King of Kings for the Salvation of the Cosmos.

He loves us.

Today those same mocking echoes of the soldiers are seen and heard. They're everywhere. Sometimes through others, mostly, however - if we are honest - we hear them in us. Their unleashed emotions and vile blasphemies express the Fallen Base of our human nature.

Jesus had always known there was a deeper realm to the evil within God's children. But it wasn't until now when he was experiencing totally, it in its raw form.  Yet, when he looked through the blood to those mocking him, he was looking at me. He was looking to you.  He was looking at them - true - but to many others through them. He was looking through them to us (after all, we are one family with Eden's DNA) - the rage of humanity against her Creator, all coming together in a single blow of the hammer.

To admit this - "we/me as the soldiers" - is the beginning of the breaking. It is the crack in the dry and barren land where there is no water; the crack wherein that very Blood can find it's way into our heart. When that happens, Jesus is blessed. When he sees us absorbing his Life Blood onto our own, he is relieved. It wasn't all for nought. Finally, the Gift is being appropriated and perhaps even, appreciated.

Knowing that gave him resolve to go to the Grave - the knowledge that, on a day far in the future - you would be appropriating the Fruit of the Tree.

Forgiving  God,  I come before you now 

To offer You my sin and shame. 

From Your altar of living sacrifice 

Shed forth Your grace to me. 

Oh, I watched you die. 

Oh, I beat your face. 

Oh, your body crucified. 

I live, you’re disgraced. 

Forgiving God, I must confess to you 

In word and deed, I’ve mocked your blood. 

Transfer from me the death that I deserve 

Onto the One on the tree. 

Oh, I watched you die. 

Oh, I beat your face. 

Oh, your body crucified. 

I live, you’re disgraced. 

Forgiving God, I stand in awe of you, 

For by your stripes I am healed. 

Clothe me I pray in your robes of righteousness, 

Washed in the Blood of the Lamb. 

Oh, I watched you die. 

Oh, I beat your face. 

Oh, your body crucified. 

I live, you’re disgraced. 

Matthew Devotion 27:21

"... which of the two do you want me to release to you?..."

God has given us a certain Risky Authority to bind or release - to withhold or set free - life or death in our life.

The sway of the crowd, the rub of the culture - if we would choose to succumb to it's hypnotic chant - tells us to choose death, to release the Barabbas into the thing. Yet back there, almost hidden in the roaring culture, there is One who silently beckons. He's been there all the time, loving, wooing you to release him. Deep inside you know he is the only One who can breath Life into your heart. He is not slick. There is nothing flashy about him. His Divinity remains fully cloaked in the hellish momentum of the crowd.

It's easy to do. Indeed, easier then picking up your Cross and following him into Obedience - to succumb to the world, that is; to use the certain Risky Authority for the binding of death, and not Life, as it was meant to be used for. Soon you, too, find yourself shouting, "Give me Barabbas! Release to me more death, more bondage, into my life!"

And, because of the Image, the Authority, that unique Rule that God has gifted you with to make things "be" at the mere utterance or your word, our Pilate washes his hands from the thing and pronounces his Blood upon us forever. Death is released. In a caustic juxtapositioning, God has actually honored what we have done with his Gift, in spite of out mismanagement of the thing. In a single moment our lifelong focus has shifted from worshipping our Maker to weaving fig leaves. The thing has been released and we are forever left dealing with the sticky residue of the Forbidden Choice.

Why has God even given us such authority? Doesn't he know we'd misuse it? No wonder he calls it a "Risky Authority!"

The authority to choose Life or death - to release this or that in our life - seems to be as binding whether it be used for Barabbas or Jesus. The riskiness of it - of course - is that we'd abuse the privilege and get into trouble. We can, for example shout with the world, "Give us Barabbas!" And Barabbas will be released. We all know that. Conversely, the releasing of Jesus into our Life comes with that same finality. The power to bless, the force to change and rearrange future blood-lines comes in the Ecstatic Sigh, "Holy Spirit, Come. Into my tomb, I now do choose, to release my Jesus!"

Choose ye this day whom you will serve.

The beautiful thing is - in spite of our misguided decisions, which have the capacity to change the course of following generations (such is the power of the Gift) - the very Life denied self-resurrects and redeems us through, of all things, our adamant misuse of that same Gift.

Jesus doesn't flinch when we shout "Barabbas." Oh, still he hears us, he still feels the betrayal, he still turns the other cheek and wonders why God and all Creation (including us) has forsaken him. But, through the power of the resurrection, his insistence to redeem, restore, and fill us with his absolute Unconditional Love remains a Force that the gates of hell themselves cannot curtail. He is resolute to stand in the Echoes of the Fall, be risen up for all to see, and rescue us from the deadly vines, wrapped tight 'round our feet, by the power of another Tree.

Though denied, he still offers. Tho killed, he still lives. Though hated, he still  loves.

And - his goal? To hear us beckoning against the crowds - "No - Give us Jesus!"

Matthew Devotion 27:26

"... then he released Barabbas to them..."


My name is Barabbas, I have sinned great sins of death
I have lied, cheated, stolen and robbed - I've got murder on my breast
What is this before me? Well, I have been set free
God has caused my sin and shame to fall upon a man from Galilee

I'm not sure of the festival or time of the year
On the day of my trial my heart was filled with Godly fear
A life I'd sown in sin and shame was now a nightmare of my past
Harboring its just reward, as before the jeering crowd I was cast

I looked down towards the masses, and then to Pilate's side
I was a wretched stinking criminal in chains and blinding Light
The crowd grew angry - not to me - but to a new man they brought forth
A broken-hearted bleeding man stood trembling before the court

Pilate rose addressed the crowd to what the verdict be
Shall I free this killer, Barabbas? Or this king from Galilee?
Deep inside I had a hope, a glimmer oh so dim
Save my life from my due death, oh Father, redeem my sin

That's when the crowd sang
Give us Barabbas! It's him we want set free
Give his punishment and just reward to the King from Galilee
What? I couldn't believe it
Give us Barabbas! It's him we want set free
Give his punishment and just reward to the One who thinks he's King

When the final pronouncement came I had been set free
I hoot and hollered, "God be praised! He has heard my sincere plea!
But then I looked across the patio into his loving eyes
Above the roaring crowds he whispered - deep into my heart
For you, I'll die.

Did my ears deceive me" For he seemed to want to die
I tried to get a second look but they pulled him from the light
Later on that evening I sat staring at my wine
When the haunting words of the afternoon swirled round and round my mind
For you I'll die.

My name is Barabbas, I've sinned great sins of death
I've lied, cheated, stolen and robbed - I've got murder on my breast
What is this before me? I have been set free
God has caused my sin and shame to fall upon a Man from Galilee

Matthew Devotion 26:75

"... So he went out and wept bitterly..."


Jesus knew Peter's heart. He knew there would be a day when this young optimistic apostle would pass through a tunnel of torment and feel so rotten about it afterwards that he would doubt his Call and his Place in the Kingdom.  So he sought to comfort Peter - way out in advance - not only to prepare him for the ordeal but to remind him that, as he himself would prove, there is Life on the backside of the Cross.  


“Simon, Simon," Jesus told him once. "Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” (Luke 22:31) 


(I can see Peter looking to heaven and thinking that sort of thing could never happen to him. "Sure, whatever, Lord." But it did. Just like Jesus said it would. Only then did the Holy Spirit remind Peter of what Jesus was really saying.)


We oftentimes misunderstand what the Lord is saying to us until after the affair. Before the betrayal we may hear his warning - along with his absolute assurance of restoration on the other side - but we don't really take it to heart. We make light of it - even turning it into something spiritual or parabolic. What nice words, we think. Perhaps somebody needs to hear those words.  Our Jesus is such a nice Shepherd. He is filled with such a great big, gushy love! Sweet, sweet Jesus! But it's only after the the betrayal when we realize the thing deafening us to God's Word in our hearts was at the very heart of our betrayal. 


Humility is a wonderful thing, isn't it? It's the stuff of Biblical Heros. What you thought you were perhaps exempt from the process? Think again.


In the story above it's important to remember that Jesus was far more interested in Peter's recovery - his return to ministry - than what took him out. Betrayal takes a heavy toll on a person, regardless of the circumstances. Jesus is aware of that. He walks it through with us, pours out the Father's love to us, and reminds us there is Life beyond life. All the same, Jesus is insistent: Peter needed to know that, after all was said and done, he still had a call to ministry, he still had Purpose and, indeed, he was still to play a crucial role in the Plans of God. 


Peter's sin, as rotten as it was, did not cause God to run and hide in a closet. No, Jesus is a Friend of Sinners. He drew closer to Peter. He singled him out and used the denial for a Future Glory - a glory perhaps greater than could have been previously. 


Gods Word never returns void. He's not going to let a speed bump take us you of the Race. He has much bigger fish to fry.


A few days later, on the beach, Jesus says nothing about Peter's sin and says everything about the original Call on his life. "Do you still love me? Then, let's get on with it. Feed my sheep"


What? Even when I've sliced off the ear of a solder and you had to heal him? Feed my sheep. What? Even after I've denied you three times before others who need to know the Love of God? Feed my sheep. What? Even when I've suffocated the your Fire by warming myself around the fires of my own comfort and misplaced passion? Yes, dude, feed my sheep! As I've told you before, when you are restored, strengthen your brothers.


A well-healed limb is often stronger than the original. What is it with our God? He not only restores the years the locusts have eaten, but he makes the remaining years even more fruitful so that the glory of yesterday is shadowed in the glory of the Day. 


Such is the power of God's forgiveness in a heart of flesh.