1. Apparently powerless Lord

Today is the last Lord day of the March and the Passion Sunday Service concludes the church year. Today we read about execution of the Cross from the Gospel by Luke 23. Jewish authority arrested, judged and sentenced Jesus to death. So soldiers brought him into the place called the Skull (Golgotha in Aramaic) where crucifixion was carried out. They nailed wrists and feet of Jesus on a cross then raised it on the earth. Jewish leaders sneered at Jesus in that posture and ; - They said, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Christ of God, the Chosen One."(Luke 23:35) (³¤­…)

# Today’s lecturer is the co-pastor Mizuguchi

1. Crime and Sin

Today is the third Lord day of Lent and our lecturing episode tells us what happened to Jesus in Jerusalem. John describes the beginning this way ; - Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?"(John 8:1-5) (³¤­…)

1. The Lost Son

During the period of Lent, we are invited to reflect on forgiveness given to us thanks to the Cross. However, as we learned last Sunday from Luke chapter 13, that without repentance we will be sentenced to perdition. And Today’s lecturing part, Luke chapter 15 from the verse 1, concerns about the repentance. The passage is well known as ‘the Parable of the lost son.’ We must read attentively the story because the lesson includes both of two brothers in their relationship with the father, not only the younger one. The first part of the portion tells about what happened to the latter. But the second part which focuses on the elder son is indispensable to understand the depth of the whole parable. Let us start reading by keeping that point in our mind . (³¤­…)

1. If no repentance, perish

Today is the third Sunday of Lent. Lent is the period during which we remember and reflect on Jesus’ suffering on the Cross. And it is also the time to understand significance of our own hard trials given by God. Indeed we experience many harsh times in our life. And we wonder why we must undergo those painful trials. We will contemplate on what they mean to us by reading Luke 13:1-9. The lecturing part tells about two incidents, that of Galileans who were killed by Pilate’s men and of eighteen persons who died crushed by the fallen tower in Siloam. We should seek significance of those incidents by connecting them to our own life because similar accidents might happen to us, too. For example, a car might dashe over and kill several children on the way to school. Or many persons are drowned in sea or in rivers during summer holidays. In winter, mountain climbers are sometimes involved in blizzard and lost. Also, suicidal cases are reported every day. Such unhappy cases occur so often that we became almost insensitive to them. But if one of the victims is one of our family members or close friends, the occurrence must be real tragedy for us. (³¤­…)