On the Third Day
Read: Matthew 28:1-10 He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. (Matt. 28:6) What a story! Several of the women who were closest to Jesus went out to the garden tomb early Sunday morning to finish the job they had not had time to complete on Friday afternoon. As they reached the […]
Dead and Buried
Read: John 19:31-42 Since the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there. (v. 42) On Saturday, Jesus was dead. Christians call this day, the day when life itself stopped and Jesus’s body lay in the tomb, Holy Saturday. After Jesus died, he was buried. It’s a simple statement that we repeat, perhaps unthinkingly, […]
Beneath the Cross of Jesus
Read: John 19:17-30 And I, when I am lifted up . . . will draw all people to myself. (John 12:32) Beneath the cross of Jesus was not a nice place to be. The sights and sounds and smells of that place on that day would have been utterly revolting. None of us would really […]
The Person Who Carried His Cross
Read: Luke 23:26-33 They seized one Simon of Cyrene . . . and laid on him the cross. (v. 26) There is a street in Jerusalem known as the Via Dolorosa, the “Way of Sorrows.” It is the route Christ is believed to have followed when he carried his cross—actually the patibulum, or crossbeam—to the […]
The Judge Who Condemned Him
Read: John 18:28-19:16 So he delivered him over to them to be crucified. (v. 16) The Apostles’ Creed mentions three names among its 100 or so words. The first, of course, is Jesus; the second is Mary; the third is Pontius Pilate. Pilate would have been totally forgotten, just another minor official from a long-dead […]
Yemi’s Journey to Faith
When you support Words of Hope, you are helping people around the world encounter God’s life-changing love in real and personal ways. In a village in Niger, a man named Yemi tuned in to one of our radio broadcasts. Something about the message stirred his heart. He listened intently, and felt drawn to learn more. […]
Reaching Remote Villages in India
In the village of Samole—40 kilometers from Words of Hope’s ministry center in Udhampur—believers are worshiping with the help of gospel content delivered on SD cards. One woman named Sumi is helping to connect many people in her village to the hope of the gospel. Though she has suffered deep personal loss, including the death […]
The Disciple Who Denied Him
Read: Matthew 26:31-35, 69-75 And immediately the rooster crowed. (v. 74) Many of the people who welcomed Jesus with loud “Hosannas” on Palm Sunday must also have shouted, “Crucify him!” on Good Friday. It’s perilously easy to betray or deny Christ; all you have to do is fall in with the crowd. Having done that […]
The Man Who Betrayed Him
Read: Matthew 26:20-25 Is it I, Lord? (v. 22) Johann Sebastian Bach’s St Matthew Passion sets Matthew’s text of the passion story to dramatic music. When the soloist singing Jesus’s words announces to the disciples that one of them will betray him, an agitated chorus immediately breaks in with the disciples’ question, “Lord, is it […]