Sunday, April 20, 2014

14 04-13 Visiting to Celebrate Easter; Christian Thoughts

It is Palm Sunday, one week before Easter.  Why is it called Palm Sunday?  Please read the article below.

Church visitation group had a wonderful time to celebrate Easter at Covenant Nursing Home.


After lunch, the members of the group was practicing with Leo, Hiroko’s best friend’s husband.  He is very good guitar player.

Here is the meeting room at the nursing home.



There weren't many residents attending, yet, because the church group had arrived a little bit early.  The church visitation group started to visit this nursing home since last Christmas, and we usually visit them around 2:30.
Leo was adjusting his guitar.  Others were waiting and talking.


The residents started coming one by one.  There was not so many residents at this time. 

Here started singing.

The numbers of the Church group seemed more than the residents.  It was happy to see the residents enjoying singing Easter Hymns and old songs.  13 songs were sung.  Leo sung some old song by himself.  Thanks to Leo.

It was time to finish and to go home.
After the singing the Nursing home provided us coffee, tea, water, and cookies.  The Pastor of the Nursing Home said thanks to us for visiting them.  We gave thanks to them for inviting us and their concern to quench our thirst.

Palm Sunday:
Palm Sunday is the day we celebrate Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem.  This happened over 2,000 years ago.  Jesus borrowed a donkey that had never been ridden before, and He slowly made His way into the city of Jerusalem.  As Jesus rode along, the people cheered for Him.  They loved Him because of all the miracles they had seen Him perform.  They thought Jesus was riding into the city to become a king.  They were hoping He would be the king who would bring peace and power to the entire Jewish nation.  The people pulled down branches from the palm trees along the road, and spread them in front of Jesus to honor Him.  They waved palm branches too and they shouted, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.”  They even took off their coasts, and laid them on the road as Jesus traveled.
If all the people wanted to make Jesus king, why was He crucified a few days later?
Jesus knew that His Kingdom was not going to be like an earthly kingdom, but some of the people don’t know that.  Jesus knew that He was going to die to save them from their sins.  God used the celebration of all the people to demonstrate that Jesus really was the Son of God.  Even though the cross where Jesus died seemed very bad, it really is good news today because we all can live together forever just because Jesus died and took the punishment for our sins.

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