While we were still weak, at the right moment, Christ died for ungodly people. It isn’t often that someone will die for a righteous person, though maybe someone might dare to die for a good person. But God shows his love for us, because while we were still sinners Christ died for us. Romans 5:6-8

Thursday evening, right after dinner together at the kitchen counter, Rebekah and I propped a small screen up against the honey bear, and completed our meal by sharing the Lord’s Supper with a host of other families around the Wake Forest area.

It was a unique moment, but knowing we were breaking the bread, and drinking the wine/water/coffee/juice with our extended church family, in real time, connected us profoundly. Not only to our Wake Forest Presbyterian family but with Christians all over this world.

And this is why today is so powerful too. Since early this morning, well before the sun rose here in the West, it has been Good Friday all across this world.

For me, the signal image is that of Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, and this view is seared into my heart. Not the Upper Room, not The Cross, not the Tomb, but the entire living, breathing cosmopolitan city that represents Christ’s last few days leading up to The Cross, and the incredible reach of the Gospel of Love. From the Triumphal Entry on Palm Sunday, to teaching in the marketplace, to walking the busy streets, to sharing love and hope to everyone he met, to carrying the burden of the heavy cross along the Via Dolorosa, Jesus engaged with people exactly where they were and he loved them without reservation.

I have said this before and I will continue to say it so long as I have breath, “Jesus is God’s invitation!” It is an invitation that is still fresh, and vital, and alive all across this crowded planet, teeming with life and aching with need.

You are invited. All of this, every sacred intention of Christ’s amazing life, offered so that I, and so that you, know that we are welcomed home.

Today is Good Friday. – Derek