Two people from ZERA (Jen Grabarczyk and David Rice) made it into the papers recently. Admittedly, it was the Belltown Messenger, and, admittedly, it had nothing to do with ZERA, but nevertheless, I can’t shake the feelings we’re well on our way to global renown. Or, at least, we’re in good company.

Actually, a kick ass article on Mars Hill Graduate School.

http://www.belltownmessenger.com/062008/062008-044-feature.html

At the crack of dawn on Sunday, the women came to the tomb carrying the burial spices they had prepared. They found the entrance stone rolled back from the tomb, so they walked in. But once inside, they couldn’t find the body of the Master Jesus.

They were puzzled, wondering what to make of this. Then, out of nowhere it seemed, two men, light cascading over them, stood there. The women were awestruck and bowed down in worship. The men said, “Why are you looking for the Living One in a cemetery? He is not here, but raised up. Remember how he told you when you were still back in Galilee that he had to be handed over to sinners, be killed on a cross, and in three days rise up?” Then they remembered Jesus’ words.

They left the tomb and broke the news of all this to the Eleven and the rest. Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them kept telling these things to the apostles, but the apostles didn’t believe a word of it, thought they were making it all up.

…

“‘Because she is in God’s hands.’ But if so, she was in God’s hands all the time, and I have seen what they did to her here. Do they suddenly become gentler to us the moment we are out of the body?… If God’s goodness is inconsistent with hurting us, then either God is not good or there is no God: for in the only life we know He hurts us beyond our worst fears and beyond all we can imagine.”

CS Lewis, A Grief Observed

“Children, I am with you for only a short time longer. You are going to look high and low for me. But just as I told the Jews, I’m telling you: ‘Where I go, you are not able to come.’

“Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other.”

Simon Peter asked, “Master, just where are you going?”

Jesus answered, “You can’t now follow me where I’m going. You will follow later.”

WIKIPEDIA SAYS:

“Patrick was born [in England]. When he was about sixteen, he was captured and carried off as a slave to Ireland. Patrick worked as a herdsman, remaining a captive for six years. He writes that his faith grew in captivity, and that he prayed daily. After six years he heard a voice telling him that he would soon go home, and then that his ship was ready. Fleeing his master, he traveled to a port, two hundred miles away he says, where he found a ship and, after various adventures, returned home to his family.

When in his early twenties.”

“Patrick recounts that he had a vision a few years after returning home: I saw a man coming, as it were from Ireland. His name was Victoricus, and he carried many letters, and he gave me one of them. I read the heading: “The Voice of the Irish”. As I began the letter, I imagined in that moment that I heard the voice of those very people who were near the wood of Foclut, which is beside the western sea—and they cried out, as with one voice: “We appeal to you, holy servant boy, to come and walk among us.”

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The Celtic Way of Evangelism, by George Hunter III tells us that:

“Within Patrick’s lifetime historians estimate that he founded around 700 churches and ordained 1000 priests. Thirty to forty of the estimated 150 tribes in Ireland became substantially Christian within Patrick’s lifetime. Patrick’s influence pretty much put an end to the slave trade in Ireland, and greatly lessened the intertribal warfare that had been their way of life for centuries. In Ireland alone there are 6000 place names that contain an element of the work Cill, the Gaelic word for church.”

WIKIPEDIA SAYS
In the Western Christian calendar, Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent and occurs forty days before Easter (excluding Sundays) It can occur as early as February 4 or as late as March 10.

At services of worship on this day, ashes are imposed on the foreheads of the faithful. The priest, minister, or in some cases officiating layperson marks the forehead of each participant with black ashes in the shape of a cross, which the worshiper traditionally retains until washing it off after sundown. The act echoes the ancient Near Eastern tradition of throwing ash over one’s head to signify repentance before God (as related in the Bible).

The priest or minister says one of the following when applying the ashes:

Remember, O man, that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return. (Latin: Memento homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris.)
—Genesis 3:19

Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel.
—Mark 1:15

Repent, and hear the good news.
—Mark 1:15

The ashes may be prepared by burning palm leaves from the previous year’s Palm Sunday celebrations. In some churches they are mixed with light amounts of water or olive oil which serve as a fixative.
….

Lent, in most Christian denominations, is the forty-day liturgical season of fasting and prayer before Easter. The forty days represent the time Jesus spent in the desert, where, according to the Bible, he endured temptation by Satan.

The purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer—through prayer, penitence, almsgiving and self-denial—for the annual commemoration of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus, as celebrated during Holy Week, which recalls the events linked to the Passion of Christ and culminates in Easter, the celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

In Western Christianity, Lent lasts from Ash Wednesday until Maundy Thursday. The six Sundays in Lent are not counted among the forty days because each Sunday represents a “mini-Easter”, a celebration of Jesus’ victory over sin and death.