(Job 23: 10,14)
Although I walk through the valley of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me (Ps. 23:4). In life’s challenges there is the thought that we are in that situation alone. Everyone around us seem to be indifferent to our cry for help; our voice seemly muffled by their indifference. We pray, but help does not come fast enough for us. To the contrary, we feel that we were not heard, and life goes on in that mode for as long as our trouble lingers. Like Job, we cry, Oh, that I knew where I might find Him, that I might come even to His seat! I would lay my cause before Him and fill my mouth with arguments; I would learn what He would answer me, and understand what He would say to me (Job 23:3-5). In the pages of Psalm 139: 13,15-16 we have a beautiful, significant and trustworthy statement from the Lord to us through David, to assure us of His involvement in our life from the beginning, when He was forming us in the womb of our mother: For You did form my inward parts; You did knit me together in my mother’s womb. I will confess and praise You for You are fearful and wonderful and for the awful wonder of my birth! Wonderful are your works, and that my inner knows well. My frame was not hidden from You when I was being formed in secret intricately and curiously wrought in the depths of the earth; Your eyes saw my unformed substance, and in Your book all the days [of my life] were written before ever they took shape, when as yet there was none of them.
YAHSHUA was dead; His body was not in the tomb, Mary Magdalene puzzled over what she was seeing, without understanding what had happened on that early morning of the first day of weeks. Without any delay, she ran to tell Simon Peter and John about it. Anxiously and worried, Mary related to the disciples that they had taken YAHSHUA’S body; she did not know where to. Her heart was disturbed and fearful with the idea that YAHSHUA’S body had disappeared. While the disciples went to verify her report, they left also puzzled, for not having understood the words of YAHSHUA concerning His resurrection in three days. Meanwhile, Mary remained at the tomb sobbing, overtaken by her emotion at the thought of Him been gone. She stood at the tomb alone, for the disciples had left at the reality of the empty tomb; they pondered over the fact, for their understanding was veiled with unbelief. As of today, not all Israel has yet been unveiled to see and perceive YAHSHUA been risen from the dead. But for Mary Magdalene, that was all a different story. Delivered from seven demons, she lived her freedom displaying her gratitude to the Lord, as in together with other women, she ministered to and provided for Him out of her property and personal belongings (Luke 8:2-3). Her love for YAHSHUA was clearly genuine, even when she thought Him to be dead.
In the beginning of time
A perfect garden was created
With beauty untold
Where sin was not a thing
To be found
In that sinless world
Man and animals harmonized
With nature in a song of perpetual
Purity and joy, as God walked
Among them in the breeze of time
Planted by the hands of God
The Garden of Eden
Blossomed with trees, flowers
Birds and butterflies, too
While a river kept it green
It was a home for Adam
To work it and care for
With a command
You must not eat certain fruit
Or you will certainly die!
Who else had heard it
If not the cunning serpent
With ideas not so good
To confuse and misguide
The mind of man?
Life in its entirety is empty without the desire to know its Author. When the Creator walked this earth, many rejected Him, although His life was a beam of light, comfort and healing for all who met Him. From blindness to the lifeless unto life, YAHSHUA stood tall and confirmed Who He was. The masses followed Him and few had to struggle to see Him, as Zacchaeus for being short in stature, as the woman with the blood flux, could only touch Him to receive her healing. Without the help of the media, the world in those days depended very much on word of mouth. YAHSHUA was so sought for, that sometimes, He had not even the time to eat. The Samaritans asked Him to remain with them a while, after His encounter with a Samaritan woman at the well. Two days He remained with them at their request, for the harvest was truly ripe. People upon hearing about Him, came from far places to see Him. The Greeks in particular, who went up to worship at the Feast; they came to Philip, and made the request, Sir, we desire to see YAHSHUA. Philip together with Andrew told YAHSHUA (John 12:21-22). It is not registered if they had a chance to see Him or not, but the fact remains that their desire was to see YAHSHUA, even though, their theology was polytheistic; they assumed that there were many gods and goddesses. The Apostle Paul when in Athens, was grieved in spirit when he saw that the city was full of idols; Acknowledging their theological obsession, he addressed them by saying, Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects. For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, to an unknown God. What therefore you worship in ignorance this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands neither is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all life and breath and all things (Acts 27:16, 22-25). It was that God, the only true God that the Greeks desired to see. It was the “Unknown God” Whom they wanted to see and know.
Not a sound, not a cry
They came to take Him away
In violent disarray
In the night while in the Garden
Gethsemane, that was
In intense prayer
While sweat like blood clots
Ran down His face
Swords, clubs, torches
To lighten into the dark
Of the mob’s coward way
They came, Jesus, we want
I am He, He replied
At His voice, they fell
backward to the ground
Their strength gone.
With a kiss He was marked
For trials by the authorities
Of crimes not committed
The verdict by Rome
Not guilty of the charges
Crucify Him, others cried
Rome’s deaf to the truth
Listened to the mob’s voice
Cesar, Cesar, our king
Away with Jesus
Crucify Him, crucify Him!
Pilate scourged and whipped Him
Mercilessly by the hands
Of his soldiers, one by one
In a spectacle of cruelty
Disgraced and guilty
Light from the Word 