Tuesday | December 15, 2020 |
Mark 15“And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him. And they led him out to crucify him.” -Mark 15:20
The first thing the Jews did when Jesus was released to them wasn’t kill Him, but instead mocked Him. They made a crown of thorns to represent a kingly crown and put a purple cloak on Him. In these times the style and color of your clothes revealed your social class and occupation. So the fact that this mob put a purple cloak on Jesus was important because that was the color signifying royalty. I wonder where they got the cloak? Did someone in the crowd willingly give theirs up to place upon Jesus just to mock Him as He wore it? I wonder if later that person realized that their cloak had clothed the Messiah and finally, after 33 years on earth, allowed a glimmer of what heaven looks like to be shown here.
It truly doesn’t matter where the cloak came from but what does matter is that though the Jews thought they were mocking Jesus, instead they were showing what happened when Jesus chose to come to humanity. They took off His symbol of royalty and clothed him in his carpenter clothes.
When Jesus willingly came to earth, He stepped off His throne and came down to the place that His words created. He chose to remove His royal robes and clothe Himself in humanity. The beautiful thing about Jesus is even though He came as a man, He was no less God. But I feel like in this moment in Mark 15:20, Jesus felt the weight of humanity’s sin as the Jews ripped off the royal cloak and clothes Him in common man’s clothing. He had to have been thinking of the weight of exchanging the royalty for humanity and what was moments away from occurring.
I’m sure in all the chaos and all the mocking Jesus realized the symbolism and weight of the situation He had found Himself so willingly in..
He became sin for us. For you.
I’d like to encourage you to sit for a moment and think of the weight of Jesus choosing to come down to humanity for us. The weight He bore, though He was without sin, He became sin for us. For you. So You could be made new and know God. What a weighty decision. Allow your heart to be filled with thanksgiving. I want to encourage you to begin to thank Him for His beautiful exchange of His throne form earth and our sin for righteousness.AuthorPastor Brooke Hernandez
Tuesday | September 22, 2020 |
Mark 3Healing
By: Pastor Brooke Hernandez
“Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea, and a great crowd followed, from Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem and Idumea and from beyond the Jordan and from around Tyre and Sidon. When the great crowd heard all that he was doing, they came to him. And he told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, lest they crush him, for he had healed many, so that all who had diseases pressed around him to touch him. And whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, “You are the Son of God.” And he strictly ordered them not to make him known.” - Mark 3:7-12 ESV
Word spread fast of all the miracles Jesus was preforming. These were tight knit communities and many of the people in the crowd I’m sure knew those who were healed already. They probably went to the synagogue for years with the blind boy who received his sight. They probably passed the paralytic every time they went to the market and now they are hearing and seeing that Jesus completely healed them.
I can only imagine the great amount of faith that was permeating the air in this crowd. I’m sure mother’s brought their sick children and sisters grabbed their ailed brother to get them healed. Everyone was anticipating an encounter with this man, Jesus, because they saw and heard that he had healed many already.
“All who had diseases pressed around him to touch him.” Mark 3:10
Every single sick person in that huge crowd was going to get their healing. They knew He could heal so they came to Him. How many times do we look at our sickness and say, “Jesus could heal me of this”, but we choose not to come to Him. We’d rather just wait for Him to come to us. Or we choose to wallow in our pity that we still aren’t healed rather then getting up and meeting with the man who paid the price for our healing. Sometimes it takes us just a moment for everything to change.
if you are needing healing, go to Jesus. Sit at his feet today.
I challenge you today: if you are needing healing, go to Jesus. Sit at His feet today. He will always meet you were you’re at but sometimes we need to take one baby step of faith. So I encourage you to step out, push through, and watch Jesus move in your life today!AuthorPastor Brooke Hernandez
