deal

I know, I know - this is completely lame: I'm blogging someone else's blog, but its good darn it. Really, I'm doing this for you, because if you're not regularly reading Pastor Zahnd's blog (you should be) you'd miss this ... and I just don't have anything else to offer you this morning.

Brian Zahnd takes a group from his church to Isreal every year. They head home today, but he's been blogging from the holy land (the pictures are breathtaking). The post today is amazing. I admit it: I got choked up; I got teary-eyed. Alright? A snippet:

Let us return to the garden where Jesus had been laid in the tomb:

"But Mary Magdalene stood outside the tomb weeping, and as she wept she stooped down and looked into the tomb. And she saw two angels in white sitting one at the head and the other at the feet where the body of Jesus had been." ~John 20:11-12

Do you know what Mary Magdalene is seeing as she sees two angels sitting where the body of Jesus had been?

She is seeing the new mercy seat. In the Old Covenant the mercy seat was the solid gold lid on the top of the Ark of the Covenant which received the blood of atonement and was covered by the wings of the cherubim at each end. The angels sitting at the head and feet of where the body of Jesus had lain signify that Jesus Himself is the new mercy seat of the new covenant!

That was a revelation to me, anyway. There's an absolutely wonderful quote from G.K. Chesterton too, but I'm not going to bite Brian's blog anymore. You'll have to check it out yourself.