Happy Easter! I whipped up these three quick monologues for my church’s Easter production this year.
Thought I would share with you all.
We serve a risen Savior! Hope you celebrate Him this Easter.
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Once For All
142,000.
142,000 sacrifices. Not in a year, not in a month, not in a week.
142,000 sacrifices in one day at the dedication of Solomon’s Temple.
One Day.
Across the ages of the Old Testament, millions of animals were sacrificed.
Countless bulls, goats, and lambs given as offerings as substitutes, as coverings for Israel’s sin.
But it was never enough. The blood of bulls and goats could only temporarily atone for breaking God’s law.
No lasting cleansing.. No eternal redemption. No final reconciliation between God and man.
No lamb could ever achieve what both God and man longed for…until the True Lamb.
The Lamb slain before the very core of Earth was spoken into existence.
The Lamb offered as the finality of our redemption.
The Lamb willingly offered up as the ransom for us all
The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the World.
Slain only once.
Offered only one time.
Once and for all, His atonement, His sacrifice, His Blood…finally enough.
No longer necessary was the slaughter of innocent animals
No more was animal blood to be spilled on the altar.
All at once and forever more, the Lamb was..
All sufficient and all inclusive.
The invitation went from exclusionary to “Whosoever will” may come.
Whosoever will may partake.
One time was all it took.
Once for all.
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Crimson
“Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”
Oh the mystery of the blood of Jesus Christ.
This gift of eternal life came at great cost.
The sacrifice which reconciled man back to his Creator was purchased at no small price.
The spanning of the uncrossable gulf between God and man by the only begotten Son of God was neither a pretty nor painless affair.
It was bloody. It was gruesome. It was tortuous.
It was so altering to the appearance of Jesus you wouldn’t have even thought him human.
His body broken. This Lamb slain. This blood shed…for you. For me.
Yet it was the only way. The only path. The one possibility to complete the plan of redemption.
A red stained, blood splattered path to life.
Here lies the mystery.
How can red blood, wash one white?
How can the sooty greasy black stain of sin be washed away by the red blood which flows from Calvary?
Try as we might…vigorously scrubbing the inky dark stain of sin from the garments of our life will never make us clean..
Soak it in good works, launder it in positivity and affirmation, wring it out with self righteousness and piety.
Still the stain remains.
Yet when we are washed in Crimson…
When we are bathed in the Scarlet red…
We emerge…
Pure as snow. White as wool.
For what can wash away my sin?
What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the scarlet red, crimson blood of Jesus.
Oh! How precious is that blessed flow,
It alone can wash me white as snow;
No other cleansing I know,
Nothing but the crimson blood of Jesus.
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Just Like He Said…
Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.
The religious elite balked at His words. They scoffed at his gall. Laughed at what they perceived to be foolishness.
“Why, greater men than you, Rabbi from the north, spent nearly 50 years building this magnificent temple. Who are you but a lowly carpenter from Nazareth? How will you build it back in three days? Quit making trouble. Stop rocking our tidy profitable religious boat.
Take the smelly fishermen you call friends and leave us and our Temple.
Never again shall the Temple of the Most High God be destroyed. We have learned our lesson. We serve none but the God of Heaven. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He who gave us the Torah, the blessed Torah. And this beautiful Temple!
Three days! Ha! What rubbish. Ridiculous.”
They didn’t understand. They didn’t comprehend. Honestly, they didn’t have a clue. And many of them never would. In less than three years their hatred and anger would be so deeply embedded in their souls they would indeed destroy this temple who was actually the Son of God.
Later, Jesus “began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.”
“Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” He had said.
The empty tomb shouldn’t have been a surprise. If only the disciples would have listened with their hearts instead of their carnal ears. If only the religious leaders full of piety and spiritual pride would have looked past their stature, status, and position.
If only they all would have truly been listening when he said,
“In three days I will raise it up…”
No one would have been surprised when the Angel rolled back the stone, revealing an empty tomb, a barren grave, a victory to seal all victories!
“He is not here;” the Angel said to the women, “He has risen, just as he said.”
He is risen! He is risen, indeed! Just like He said…
VIDEO – Empty