You shall not bow down to them or serve them

It is hard not to focus on the Apostles Creed during Holy Week. As we move toward good Friday one can imagine the nervousness in the air and the talk in Jerusalem. It was the Passover. The time of remembrance when a people were delivered by God and the most powerful nation on earth was overthrown. The climate must have been charged. Here arrived Jesus with a motley band of followers in a city with a people crying out to be liberated from a foreign occupying army. People are people so there was shock, resentment, drama as this rogue back country rabbi spoke truth against power and allegiance to God above all else. So as I read the apostles creed "suffered under Pontius Pilate" it had impact since I know how the week ends. While Jesus was innocent of the charges brought against him he was not chosen to be brought before Pilate for no reason. He had not come to Jerusalem to simply be a pilgrim.

I then read the Ten Commandments.

This whole period of Lent for me has been the continual reflection on the first command. You can't escape it in the readings:The first commandment, The fourth commandment, Our father, I believe.

God seeks us to seek him first.

Today I really saw how Jesus lived it out. Even with the threat of punishment, even with the uncomfort that he knew his words would bring, even as he must of felt the climate of Jerusalem shift against him from his royal entrance toward his criminal end, Jesus did not waver from the first command.

"Seek ye first the kingdom of God"