Kryptonite Cryptography

Synaxarion for Holy and Great FridayOn this day, Holy and Great Friday, we celebrate the awesome, holy, and saving Passion of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ—the spitting, the blows with the palm of the hand, the buffeting, the mockery, the reviling, the wearing of the purple robe, the reed, the sponge, the vinegar, the nailing, the lance, and above all, the Crucifixion and Death which He condescended to endure willingly for our sakes—and also the saving confession of the grateful thief upon the cross.

Синаксарь во Святую Великую ПятницуВо святую и Великую Пятницу мы совершаем (последование) святых, спасительных и страшных страданий Господа и Бога и Спаса нашего Иисуса Христа, которые Он добровольно претерпел за нас. Оплевания, избиения, пощечины, поношения, насмешки, багряница, трость, губка, уксус, гвозди, копье, и после всего этого Крест и смерть, — все это имело место в пятницу.

Christ is risen! Truly, He is risen!

This is from the email from one of my good friends. So beautiful...

“But now is Christ risen from the dead”— 1 Cor. 15:20.

THIS is the morning of mornings! Christ is risen! Thanks be to God! Amid a world blinded by Satan and blighted by sin and blasted by war, amid the crash of armies and amid the crash of wrecked hopes, amid the pathetic breakdown of human nature and the ironic failure of proud, little, twentieth-century man to work out his own salvation—amid all this, and amid the gloomy problems which beset the immediate future, the one great fact which gives solid comfort and hope and promise is the fact that nineteen hundred and some years ago, on the sixteenth day of the month Nisan, A.D. 32, God raised up the crucified Jesus Christ from the grave. That empty tomb means Diabolos (Greek word for Satan) vanquished and Christ victorious. It means that in the next chapter of human history God’s kingdom shall come, and His will be done on earth as it is in heaven. The biggest of problems to the natural man in this present age is the silence of God. ‘Why does not God speak?” he asks. “Let God speak, so that we may hear Him and know that He really is.” The resurrection of Christ proclaims that God has spoken already, and that the God who spoke yesterday will speak again in a soon-coming tomorrow. As truly as He rose Christ will come again to this world of ours. His resurrection tolls the knell on evil’s dark kingdom, and rings the glad bell of God-given hope for the travailng earth. The present age (we verily believe) is rushing on with accentuated momentum to the world’s Friday night; the morning of the Millennial seventh-day thousand-year Sabbath is soon to break, when the Christ of the Easter morn shall become the Christ of the Davidic throne; when swords shall become ploughshares, and spears become pruning hooks, and the nations shall learn war no more.

Such is the significance of our Lord’s resurrection for human history; and it is well that we should gratefully keep it in mind during days like these. But besides this, let all of us who know the cleansing efficacy of our Saviour’s precious blood, and the regenerating reality of the Holy Spirit, pray that the “Spirit of wisdom and of revelation” may vivify it all afresh to us, causing it to grip us and thrill us and impel us onward in the train of our Lord’s triumph. Let us pray that the historical fact of it may become more and more corroborated by the power of it in our daily experience; and that the risen Jesus who reappeared bodily to His disciples may be the indwelling Christ who becomes spiritually luminous to our minds. Let us pray that we may know the subduing power of our Lord’s resurrection over self and sin and Satan—its power to subdue evil tempers, unruly tongues, flaming passions, enslaving desires, inordinate ambitions, fear, pride, hate, jealousy, temptation, circumstance, and innate proclivities to sin. Let us pray that we may know its transforming power in heart and disposition and character—its power to lift us above earthiness and littleness into refining fellowship with God and spacious consciousness of things divine. Let us pray that we may know its vitalizing power in Christian service, in our preaching or writing or witness-bearing or organizing—its power to infuse an inward glow and a communicative vitality and a soul-winning telling-power. Yes, thank God, “Now is Christ risen from the dead ”. On this Easter day, may you and I prove His resurrection afresh in our hearts!