How awesome is the LORD Most High,
the great King over all the earth!
Psalm 47:2
Out of space
Yesterday I realised my 40GB hard drive was finally full. And it was a most unpleasant sensation. Now I need to actually get a fileserver working, because it’s way too much hassle to install a new hard drive in this machine + copy stuff onto it (I’m out of IDE channels so I can’t just bang a new one in). Because, you know, setting up a fileserver is just so much more trivial.
One of the reasons the hard drive is so full is the ridiculous number of photos I take. The situation isn’t assisted by ridiculously beautiful sunsets ridiculously often. These two just in:
I’m contemplating moving all my photos onto the PC known as Media on our network (it’s a Shuttle XPC thing with Windows MCE installed), because it has a 320GB hard drive, and because WOW Media Center’s photo album playback is awesome. I used it today and was very impressed. Definitely not for everything, but if you just have a heap of photos to go through sequentially it’s great. I was sitting there with a remote clicking “next next next” as required, and it was a throughly painless experience.
[Aside: I am proud at having combined these three things — starting with my running out of disc space, actually more due to video than photos, but I needed the photo reference to launch into the sunset big and onwards to Media Center — under the title of “Out of space”. It really only applies well to the first one, but hopefully the post meandered transparently enough that no-one noticed or cared. I say this now because evidently people do read what I write here for the writing. Curious as to whether or not I can get criticism as well as praise, or if people will choose to say nothing at all rather than something nice. Not that I mind comments that are nice, but… it’d be good to move beyond that. Okay, this aside is definitely outside the scope of the title!]
Having said all that, Merry Christmas all. That bears absolutely no relation to the title, unless you’re some weird conspiracy theorist who is convinced that Jesus was sent by Martians. I prefer to believe he’s the son of God, which might strike some as no less weird, but at least it’s historically correlated (both in prior prophecy and contemporary recording)! Whatever your perspective, try and think about why you’re celebrating Christmas this year…
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Good Friday
From Mark 15, NIV translation
Jesus Before Pilate
1Very early in the morning, the chief priests, with the elders, the teachers of the law and the whole Sanhedrin, reached a decision. They bound Jesus, led him away and handed him over to Pilate.
2“Are you the king of the Jews?” asked Pilate.
“Yes, it is as you say,” Jesus replied.
3The chief priests accused him of many things. 4So again Pilate asked him, “Aren’t you going to answer? See how many things they are accusing you of.”
5But Jesus still made no reply, and Pilate was amazed.
6Now it was the custom at the Feast to release a prisoner whom the people requested. 7A man called Barabbas was in prison with the insurrectionists who had committed murder in the uprising. 8The crowd came up and asked Pilate to do for them what he usually did.
9“Do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?” asked Pilate, 10knowing it was out of envy that the chief priests had handed Jesus over to him. 11But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have Pilate release Barabbas instead.
12“What shall I do, then, with the one you call the king of the Jews?” Pilate asked them.
13“Crucify him!” they shouted.
14“Why? What crime has he committed?” asked Pilate.
But they shouted all the louder, “Crucify him!”
15Wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. He had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.
The Soldiers Mock Jesus
16The soldiers led Jesus away into the palace (that is, the Praetorium) and called together the whole company of soldiers. 17They put a purple robe on him, then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on him. 18And they began to call out to him, “Hail, king of the Jews!” 19Again and again they struck him on the head with a staff and spit on him. Falling on their knees, they paid homage to him. 20And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him.
The Crucifixion
21A certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was passing by on his way in from the country, and they forced him to carry the cross. 22They brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means The Place of the Skull). 23Then they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. 24And they crucified him. Dividing up his clothes, they cast lots to see what each would get.
25It was the third hour when they crucified him. 26The written notice of the charge against him read: THE KING OF THE JEWS. 27They crucified two robbers with him, one on his right and one on his left. 29Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, “So! You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, 30come down from the cross and save yourself!”
31In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! 32Let this Christ, this King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe.” Those crucified with him also heaped insults on him.
The Death of Jesus
33At the sixth hour darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour. 34And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” – which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
35When some of those standing near heard this, they said, “Listen, he’s calling Elijah.”
36One man ran, filled a sponge with wine vinegar, put it on a stick, and offered it to Jesus to drink. “Now leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to take him down,” he said.
37With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.
38The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. 39And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, heard his cry and saw how he died, he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God!”
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Keeping 90%
We started a new series at church last night, on money and how we think about and manage it. In the first of five talks, we looked at the relationship which exists between God and money. Read the rest of this entry »

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