This Morning

I had a very good day--energy wise, yesterday. Which is why I flipped out at the end when someone started pulling the burning technology and computer stuff again. I accidentally broke my fast of swearing, over the phone, after over a couple of weeks of not swearing out loud once and only thinking it a couple of times. But I'm just back to fasting it. Then chapel ood but it was hard at first, after what had just happened. I really liked a song we sang and sang it as loud as I felt like singing it.

The first song I played this morning was "Not Afraid" by Eminem and the verse I got from the Y was Rev. 3:20, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and sup with him, and he with me."

I saw a rainbow of Semi's and cars today, which is an aside. I got to the Y early and stood outside waiting. I thought about going to a store to get something to eat but I waited instead and looked out over at this freeway and all these semis and cars were passing by in every color of the rainbow. A large red and green semi passed eachother at the same time, and there was a cobalt blue one, and yellow, and red, and black, and green, and orange, and every color of car. In just a few minutes space, all of that color so I noticed it. One combination was of a blue, and yellow and then red semi, all together. Then there was a grey and mustard color one too. A lot of colors.

Right after standing at this large stone by the Y that says "Is Jesus the chief Cornerstone?" and I noticed it had been broken off and there must be a different part of it. Then I went around the corner to the other side and that's when I saw all the cars and semis and in all the colors.

I noticed the semis and cars too, after walking on a different side of the sidewalk than I usually walk on and seeing a bunch of bottles all in a row in rainbow colors.

Last night I was so upset and then got to chapel and opened up randomly to where Jesus was going to be crucified and all about the part where he was being called "King of the Jews".

(played the song "Not Afraid" by Eminem and then "Still" by Hillsong:
youtube.com/watch?v=Qk8horRi3_E

I was asking why would people do these things to me and I opened up to the part where it says "Crucify him, crucify him" and then Pilate says, "You want me to kill your king?" And the Pharisees freaked out and said, "He is NOT 'King of the Jews'" and I realized while reading this, the context...That Pilate was acting like a ruler over another group of people. He was a Roman. And the Jews had their kingdom under his rule but Pilate still recognized their autonomy to some degree and allowed them to keep their own ways and practices. So, I realized, the fame and respect of Jesus must have been so great, that, in fact, it had become a kind of "common knowledge" that Jesus Christ was being called, widely and throughout Israelites, "King". He was a leader of such renown, in his low stature way, that he was being called King and even other countries, and Rome, referred to him as Jesus, King of the Jews. He wasn't just a healer and a prophet or an activist. People knew who he was everywhere, and he was referred to, by the common Jewish people, as their King, like a King of any country would be referred to. They worshipped him like a king but also as the son of God.

So my eyes were opened in a new way, while reading this passage, to see that Pilate wasn't mocking Jesus when he said, "King of the Jews." At that moment, he was seriously thinking Jesus WAS the King "of the Jews" just like David or Saul or any of the other former kings. And the religious leaders, or Pharisees, FREAKED OUT. They knew Pilate's "mistake" was innocent, but they hated the connotation it gave Christ. This is where the whole passage sounds like a bunch of lawyers or journalists all grouped together...

"Take that part out!" Take out the part about Jesus being King of the Jews. "He's NOT!" He is NOT KING OF THE JEWS and we don't want there to be ANY misunderstanding about THAT. They wanted an ammendment or a retraction.

Pilate put up a sign that said "King of the Jews" anyway, or a notice to all the people, a legal notice, that declared Jesus Christ, King of the Jews, was going to be put to death. Pilate worded it this way because he knew that this was how the Jews themselves, the common people, referred to Jesus and it was the way to distinguish this "Jesus" from the other "Hay-SUEses".

So the sign and notice went up. What Pilate did, may have been innocent or naive in some ways, but he still had blood on his hands, though he wrestled with what he was doing. Then, when the Roman soldiers came over, it was the soldiers who mocked Jesus, and took this reference, "King of the Jews" to mock and belittle him, while still knowing he was important enough that they wanted to take and KEEP his clothing. After dividing up the clothes of Jesus into 4 parts, so each of them had a share, they were left with an undergarment that belonged to Jesus, a long piece that was seamless. They said, "Let's cast a lot to see who gets this".

The Pharisees, while denouncing Jesus as being a King of the Jews, said to Pilate, "He is NOT our KING! Caesar is!" so they tried to say they had no "king" and that their only king was the Roman one.

The soldiers wouldn't have taken the clothes of Jesus, or wanted them at all, if they had not thought he was important. They wanted souveneers.

Then, some people didn't want dead people hanging up in public view on the Sabbath (not on church day, sniff, thank you), so they wanted to finish the job and make sure they were out of sight by Sunday. Which helped me to think about the location of Christ's crucifixion--that it was in a prominent place where maybe it was at a distance to some, but many could see the crosses on the hill and knew that people were on those crosses, dying a slow death. It wasn't like they were out of sight and mind. They were where people could see this happening.

So the soldiers were instructed to go over and break the legs which was to hasten the death and then take the guys off the cross. The other guys hadn't died yet so they broke their legs to cause them to die faster. But when they got to Jesus, he was already dead. So they didn't break his legs, but one soldier got curious and poking and prodding, or wanting to make sure, put a spear into his heart and from this gushed out water and blood at the same time.

It says there were witnesses and that this was in fulfillment of the Old Testament, which said the Messiah or chosen one would not have one bone broken but would be pierced.

Then I read about how it was just Mary his mother, and Mary, the sister of his mother (his aunt), and the "disciple he loved" (I think) standing there. Mary Magdalene later was the one to stand by his tomb and look inside and see angels. She didn't know they were angels because they weren't glowing and looked like normal people. They just looked like normal people sitting at the tomb and she told them people had taken her Lord away and she didn't know where he was and then she went outside and thought this guy who looked like he was a gardener, was the gardener. She didn't even recognize him but it was Christ.

Maybe the testimony about blood and water coming from the heart was also to prove Christ really died, so his later appearance was noted as a true resurrection from the dead. For purposes of what the testimony is at least.
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I don't think it has to do with me except that I can relate to some of it. But mainly, my eyes were opened to seeing more of the context of the fame of Christ and what he was called and why.

Then we had an interesting chapel service, and the songs were about the same sort of thing (christ for us). And then I read, while trying to keep up with the scripture references, this part about Saul which I hadn't read in a long time. I liked the message because it was about how we need to trust in God or we offend him as being an unfit father. Someone who is negligent with his own children.

At the end though, I was looking up this verse from I Sam. (which she had mentioned) and thought it was so interesting because it talked about how Samuel came to know Saul was the anointed one, the one God has chosen. I always think Saul had a sad fate bc he consulted spirits at the end, against God and then fell on his own sword, however, who can say but God that he was still blessed in the end? It sort of cautionary. But Saul was anointed and then it says, Samuel was able to predict every single thing that was going to happen in the next days. He told Saul, "This is going to happen, and then this, and then you will find a man who does this and then you will go here and a woman will say that and then you will know..." and Samuel predicted every single thing, but he wasn't getting his power from a bad source, he was from God. He was a prophet (who, I think at one point was about to be killed bc all the prophets were being killed off and he said, please help me--oh no, that's Elijah). So then all of these things happened just as Saul said, and then after this, Saul himSELF started to prophesy and suddenly had this gift of prophesy. So the prophets were all saying (the other ones), "What's this? this new King is a prophet?" or maybe they just thought of him as a regular man and not a king yet. But Saul began to have this ability when he went to the "camp of gypsies" who were God-gifted prophets. I say "camp of gypsies" not literally, but he went to some hippie circle, it sounds like, or group of highly spiritual musicians because they were all prophets and all sitting around playing music. Then, Saul just joins right in, and starts prophesing and they started asking him how he got this ability and who his real father is. I think, because they can't believe it. Then, after he prophesies, he becomes king, just as it was predicted.

I thought this part was sort of fascinating.

But then I think too, how he did wrong when he consulted mediums to bring up the prophet after he'd died.
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This woman who is new and has Vanderbilt connections (I guess) borrowed my computer to look up some mental health stuff she has been researching. She's writing a book and doing medical research for a variety of things--I guess mental health rights and seizures and epilepsy. She says her mom is English but I guess Vanderbilt is a connection or school her father went to and that she's affiliated with.

I tried to think of a few ideas off the top of my head and one thing that came to my mind with seizures was bananas and then I thought, why did I think about bananas? Then I thought, "potassium" and so I typed in a search and found potassium and epilepsy are linked.

I also heard her talking about her rash and Vitamin A came to mind. So I thought she should try betacarotene and dandilion tea. I didn't mention dandilion tea. I also brought up L-cysteine and witch hazel.