When they suffered, he suffered with them. He sent his angel to save them. He set them free because he is loving and kind. He lifted them up and carried them. He did it again and again in days long ago.
Aren’t the people of Ephraim my dear children? Aren’t they the children I take delight in? I often speak against them. But I still remember them. So my heart longs for them. I love them with a tender love,” announces the Lord.
One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples spoke to him. “Lord,” he said, “teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”
The Lord answered, “Suppose a master puts one of his servants in charge of his other servants. The servant’s job is to give them the food they are to receive at the right time. The master wants a faithful and wise manager for this.
The Lord answered him, “You pretenders! Doesn’t each of you go to the barn and untie your ox or donkey on the Sabbath day? Then don’t you lead it out to give it water?
He replied, “Suppose you have faith as small as a mustard seed. Then you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be pulled up. Be planted in the sea.’ And it will obey you.
But Zacchaeus stood up. He said, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of what I own to those who are poor. And if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay it back. I will pay back four times the amount I took.”
The Lord turned and looked right at Peter. Then Peter remembered what the Lord had spoken to him. “The rooster will crow today,” Jesus had said. “Before it does, you will say three times that you don’t know me.”
He approached the town gate. Just then, a dead person was being carried out. He was the only son of his mother. She was a widow. A large crowd from the town was with her.
He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who are you looking for?” She thought he was the gardener. So she said, “Sir, did you carry him away? Tell me where you put him. Then I will go and get him.”
Those who mourn should live as if they did not. Those who are happy should live as if they were not. Those who buy something should live as if it were not theirs to keep.
Brothers and sisters, we want you to know what happens to those who die. We don’t want you to mourn, as other people do. They mourn because they don’t have any hope.
So he had to be made like people, fully human in every way. Then he could serve God as a kind and faithful high priest. And then he could pay for the sins of the people by dying for them.
We have a high priest who can feel it when we are weak and hurting. We have a high priest who has been tempted in every way, just as we are. But he did not sin.