Garden of Gethsemane

Garden of Gethsemane 

A dark night of anguish for my Savior.

Fulfilling His Father's will.

Out of His deep love for me.

Maundy Thursday will always be encased

 in the words of the following hymn.

Thought I would share the words here

 as I learned them so long ago,

and a bit about the author.

Go to Dark Gethsemane 

1 Go to dark Gethsemane,

You who feel the tempter's pow'r;

Your Redeemer's conflict see;

Watch with Him one bitter hour;

Turn not from His griefs away;

Learn of Jesus Christ to pray.

2 Follow to the judgment hall;

View the Lord of life arraigned;

O the worm-wood and the gall!

O the pangs His soul sustained!

Shun not suff'ring, shame, or loss;

Learn of Him to bear the cross.

3 Calv'ry's mournful mountain climb

There' adoring at His feet,

Mark the miracle of time,

God's own sacrifice complete:

"It is finished!" Hear the cry;

Learn of Jesus Christ to die.

4 Early hasten to the tomb

Where they laid his breathless clay;

All is solitude and gloom;

Who hath taken Him away?

Christ is ris'n! He meets our eyes:

Savior, teach us so to rise.

Author of Hymn- 
Go to Dark Gethsemane-
 James Montgomery

Montgomery, James, son of John Montgomery, a Moravian minister, was born at Irvine, Ayrshire, Nov. 4, 1771. In 1776 he removed with his parents to the Moravian Settlement at Gracehill, near Ballymena, county of Antrim. Two years after he was sent to the Fulneck Seminary, Yorkshire. He left Fulneck in 1787, and entered a retail shop at Mirfield, near Wakefield. Soon tiring of that he entered upon a similar situation at Wath, near Rotherham, only to find it quite as unsuitable to his taste as the former. A journey to London, with the hope of finding a publisher for his youthful poems ended in failure; and in 1792 he was glad to leave Wath for Shefield to join Mr. Gales, an auctioneer, bookseller, and
printer of the Sheffield Register newspaper, as his assistant. In 1794 Mr. Gales left England to avoid a political prosecution. Montgomery took the Sheffield Register in hand, changed its name to The Sheffield Iris, and continued to edit
it for thirty-one years. During the next two years he was imprisoned twice,
first for reprinting therein a song in commemoration of "The Fall of the Bastille," and the second for giving an account of a riot in Sheffield. The editing of his paper, the composition and publication of his poems and hymns, the delivery
of lectures on poetry in Sheffield and at the Royal Institution, London,
and the earnest advocacy of Foreign Missions and the Bible Society in many parts of the country, gave great variety but very little of stirring incident to his life. In 1833 he received a Royal pension of £200 a year. He died in his sleep,
at the Mount, Sheffield, April 30, 1854, and was honoured with a public funeral. 

Happy Birthday MR. THREE

So I know I won't always get to spend time

 with this little guy for his birthday.

And his birthday won't always fall on Palm Sunday- 

the beginning of Holy Week.

And this is the one time he turns THREE.

And it may be the only time

 every gift is opened with oohs 

and such glee.

And a scooter and a super hero card 

and pjs hit the mark.

And the Paw Patrol is here to bark.

And a Three candle to blow on a donut "cake"

is the best you could ever make.

So we wish you the best Birthday ever!
Mr. Griffin.

With prayers and blessings and 

hearts full of love 

for the next year of adventure.

Prayers for my Children Flip Chart

Prayers for my Children

A Simple project to help remind me 

to pray for my children, 

spouses and grandchildren.

Middle daughter was home for a visit

 and we made one for her family to use.

We decided to "keep it simple"

to go along with the lifestyle of a busy momma.

I had precut pages left yet from 

when we started making these ten years ago.

 We had a printing company

 cut them out and punch them.

(worth the investment for the look of the finished product)

Washi tape saved the day.

 We picked out 4 sheets of scrapbooking paper 

to use throughout the project.

Doo-dads, tags, etc and a few embellishments.

We liked the look of torn paper 

and added some distress ink to the edges.

Secured the paper 

with double-sided sticky tape.

Thirty-one days of prayer on a flip-chart.

A few pages for photos of family.

 To use over and over again.

 Month after month.

 Year after year.

One mother reported that she said 

these prayers of blessing

 over her daughters for years. 

 When they went to college 

they told her,

"Mom, we know what you'll be praying

 over us each day.

 Keep on praying."
 This project can be found in the 
FILES section in the 
North Carolina Visual Faith Community FB Group:
Prayers for my children


The story is about preparing to pray,
creating the resource to pray,
and keeping it where you see it-
 to be reminded to pray.
Blessing our loved ones?
Can't beat that!

Holy Week Art with a Two Year Old

Getting ready for Holy Week 

with some easy creative projects.

And a very special helper.

How about easy enough that a 2 year old-

 but will be 3 in two days can be a helper?

Griffin helped to paint the edges

 with yellow acrylic paint 

with a foam brush.

I took a favorite Easter Printable 

printed on 8 1/2 by 11 cardstock

and tore the edges.

 Then used some distress ink

 to add a bit of color to the edges.

Griffin used Mod Podge Matte 

medium on the flat canvas.

 Then we added the printable

 and more Mod Podge on the top.

And there you go- 

easy enough for a pint-sized helper.

 Printable is found here:
easter-subway-art-printable

Palace of Agrippa II- Banias - Israel

Agrippa II was the great-grandson of Herod the Great, 

raised and educated at the imperial court in Rome. 

He was a friend of Rome but a loyal patron of his Jewish subjects, 

and he did what he could to avert to cataclysm that began in 66AD,

 when the Jewish Rebellion broke out.

Ultimately he sided with the Romans, because he knew they would win.

 Pragmatism was part of his nature. 

But he was also well-placed to negotiate for the survivors at the end of the War.

Agrippa II and Paul of Tarsus. 

In 60AD, when Paul had been in prison for two years,

 the procurator in Judea, Festus, consulted Agrippa concerning his case. 

This happened during a visit that Agrippa and his sister Bernice 

were making to Caesarea 

(Agrippa and Bernice were said to be having an incestuous affair,

 though the writer of Acts tactfully does not mention this). (wikipedia)

Sometimes the part of being in the Holy Land 

is the ability to picture just where the stories 

took place that we read about in the Bible. 

This is one of those spots.

Trial of St. Paul in front of Agrippa, Bernice and Festus.

Nikolai Bodarevsky- 1875- Russia.

Acts 25:14-27New International Version (NIV)

14 Since they were spending many days there, Festus discussed Paul’s case with the king. He said: “There is a man here whom Felix left as a prisoner. 15 When I went to Jerusalem, the chief priests and the elders of the Jews brought charges against him and asked that he be condemned.

16 “I told them that it is not the Roman custom to hand over anyone before they have faced their accusers and have had an opportunity to defend themselves against the charges. 17 When they came here with me, I did not delay the case, but convened the court the next day and ordered the man to be brought in. 18 When his accusers got up to speak, they did not charge him with any of the crimes I had expected. 19 Instead, they had some points of dispute with him about their own religion and about a dead man named Jesus who Paul claimed was alive. 20 I was at a loss how to investigate such matters; so I asked if he would be willing to go to Jerusalem and stand trial there on these charges. 21 But when Paul made his appeal to be held over for the Emperor’s decision, I ordered him held until I could send him to Caesar.”

22 Then Agrippa said to Festus, “I would like to hear this man myself.”

He replied, “Tomorrow you will hear him.”

Paul Before Agrippa

23 The next day Agrippa and Bernice came with great pomp and entered the audience room with the high-ranking military officers and the prominent men of the city. At the command of Festus, Paul was brought in. 24 Festus said: “King Agrippa, and all who are present with us, you see this man! The whole Jewish community has petitioned me about him in Jerusalem and here in Caesarea, shouting that he ought not to live any longer. 25 I found he had done nothing deserving of death, but because he made his appeal to the Emperor I decided to send him to Rome. 26 But I have nothing definite to write to His Majesty about him. Therefore I have brought him before all of you, and especially before you, King Agrippa, so that as a result of this investigation I may have something to write.27 For I think it is unreasonable to send a prisoner on to Rome without specifying the charges against him.”

 That good ole Roman arch.

One of the very best (and oldest) cruciforms

found in ancient Israel is found here at this site.

And as always- 

things sort of connect and mix up time frames.

Underneath- 

the still in use Roman arch- the Roman bridge.

Up above- 

the road cars and truck use as they pass over,

 on their way to Golan.

Israel Pilgrimage 5- Tel Dan

 The Gate at Tel Dan.
Excavation and reconstruction
 of the Eastern Bronze Age gate.

Built about 1800 B.C., this mudbrick gate 

was in use approximately 50 years

 before it was covered 
(and thus preserved) 
by an earthen rampart.

The style of the gate is typical for this period;

 it is a “Syrian gate” with three pairs of piers 

and four chambers, like those found at Megiddo, 

Shechem and Gezer.

Scale model of the rendering
 of how the original gate looked. 

Iron Age Gate area

On the northern frontier of the kingdom,

 Dan was particularly well fortified.  

The gatehouse was built in the ninth century, 

probably by Ahab, and is part of a series of gateways discovered.

 This area has the discovery of the Dan Inscription-

 which mentions the “House of David.”

Few modern Biblical archaeology discoveries 

have caused as much excitement as the Tel Dan inscription—

writing on a ninth-century B.C. stone slab

 (or stela) that furnished the first historical evidence of

King David from the Bible.

The Tel Dan inscription, or “House of David” inscription,

 was discovered in 1993 at the site of Tel Dan in northern Israel

in an excavation directed by Israeli archaeologist Avraham Biran.

The broken and fragmentary inscription commemorates

 the victory of an Aramean king over his two southern neighbors: 

the “king of Israel” and the “king of the House of David.”

 In the carefully incised text written in neat Aramaic characters, 

the Aramean king boasts that he, under the divine guidance of the god Hadid, 

vanquished several thousand Israelite and Judahite horsemen and charioteers 

before personally dispatching both of his royal opponents. 

Unfortunately, the recovered fragments of the “House of David”

 inscription do not preserve the names of the specific kings

 involved in this brutal encounter, but most scholars

 believe the stela recounts a campaign of Hazael of Damascus 

in which he defeated both Jehoram of Israel and Ahaziah of Judah.

11-8-2016- Biblical Archeology (originally published in 2011.)

High Place of Jeroboam

Nearly all archaeologists agree that this excavated podium

 was the one that Jeroboam constructed

 to house the golden calf at Dan.  

Archaeologists now think the platform was roofed.

Evidence of a four-horned altar has been found

 as well as religious objects such as three iron shovels,

 a small horned altar, and an iron incense holder.

 2 Kings 12, Jeroboam built new temples at Bethel
 (on Israel’s southern border) and at Dan (on the northern border). 
At each of these shrines, he set up a golden bull calf, 
calling them Elohim, the gods who brought the Israelites out of Egypt. 
This appropriation of the Hebrew name for God
 and the Exodus tradition signified a savvy political attempt 
to construct a new national epic for the north-
 centered around the resonant themes
 of the erstwhile United Monarchy. 

This is in a part of  
the northernmost section 
of the Galilee in our travels to Israel.

Near here the waters of the Jordan River
 flow down from Mount Hermon.

The Nature Reserve at Tel Dan 
makes for a beautiful stop on your time 
"up North".

Bible Marginalia-Joy to the Sorrowing

Bible Marginalia Series- #246

Jeremiah 31:23-25

"This is what the Lord of Heaven's Armies, 

the God of Israel, says:

When I bring them back from captivity, 

the people of Judah 

and its town will again say, 

'The Lord bless you, 

O righteous home, O holy mountain!'

 Townspeople and farmers and shepherd

 alike will live together in peace and happiness.

 For I have given rest

 to the weary and joy to the sorrowing."

Seems like we so often prepare for the future

 and live always getting ready for something.

As I read this section it is a reminder 

about giving thanks

 for where we have already been too.

Perhaps now it is really days coming

  back from a time away.

And as confusing as that might be

 to think about, there is certainly

 the twining thread of HOPE in all of it.

The Lord continues to give-

 rest to the weary 

and joy to the sorrowing.

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