Saturday, March 31, 2018

The Saturday of Holy Week

[This is the seventh and final post in a series on the week of Jesus' passion, first posted in 2012.]

Theme: Waiting
Text: Mark 16:1; Luke 23:56; Matt. 27:62-65

The records of what happened on the day between the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus are brief.  Nothing is reported about the disciples--we can only gather from the lack of faith demonstrated later that they were not confidently expecting Jesus' words about rising again to come to pass.  

The women who wanted to care for Jesus' body ran out of time on Friday to complete their preparations: the tomb was closed while they went home and rested for the Sabbath as required by Jewish Law.  Saturday night was spent getting the final supplies and preparing to go to the tomb the next day--wondering how they would move that stone.

But the enemies of Jesus were disturbed.  They knew that Jesus had said He would rise.  So they went to Pilate to ask for guards to be sent to the tomb to keep his disciples from stealing the tomb.  Obviously these Jewish opponents of Jesus feared the power of Jesus to motivate his disciples, even if they didn't believe in resurrection.

Sometimes those who don't believe in Jesus have a clearer understanding of what Jesus words can mean than do His own disciples.  Maybe that's why so many efforts are made to keep people from hearing or reading God's Word.

Thank God that the despair and dejection of that Saturday never need be faced by any of Jesus' followers again, for less than 24 hours later, Jesus would emerge from the tomb and the question of whether or not He was Messiah and His sacrifice sufficient would have been forever settled.  

Friday, March 30, 2018

The Friday of Holy Week

[This is the sixth post in a series on Jesus' passion week, first posted in 2012.]


Text: John 18:28-38
Theme: Truth


There is so much more to be said about the day of Jesus' death than I can even mention in this format, but let me simply point out one moment.  It is Jesus, standing before Pilate, questioning him and having Jesus answer with questions and hard sayings.


"Are you king of the Jews?" asks Pilate.


"Do you say this on your own, or did others say it about me?"


"Am I a Jew? Your nation has delivered you over..." Pilate responds.  "What have you done?"


"My kingdom is not of this world..."


"So, you are a king!"


"For this purpose I was born," said Jesus, "to bear witness to the truth."


It is at this moment, as Ravi Zacharias first pointed out in a sermon I heard, that a huge opportunity is presented and missed.


Pilate responds to Jesus' statement by asking, "What is truth?"


But instead of waiting for Jesus to respond, he turns and goes outside.


Pilate was a skeptic, who didn't believe there was truth to guide you: there was only opportunities to be snatched or missed, and circumstances to be controlled or else have them control you.


Imagine if he had waited.  At every moment in this dialog, Jesus had responded.  But here, Pilate doesn't wait for a response.  If he had, what would Jesus have said?  Would it have mattered?  It would not have changed the outcome as Christ's sacrifice was not optional, but might have begun a change in Pilate.  We can never know.


On this Good Friday, many will not know what the day is about.  Many others will recognize an historical event, but not seek to know the truth of what happened and why.


May your Good Friday be one where you know what happened, and why it happened, and that it happened all for you.

Thursday, March 29, 2018

The Thursday of Holy Week

[This is the fifth post on the week of Jesus' passion, first posted in 2012.]

Text: John 13:1-17:26
Theme: New Commandment


Our text today is a long one, but that is because it was so important that John dedicates almost 20% of his gospel to the account of the last supper in the upper room.  Why so much time here?

There were, it is true, many poignant moments.  The passage begins by stressing Jesus' unfailing love for His disciples, right to the very end.  And it concludes with a prayer that reflects that love.  He taught them humility by washing their feet, and told them that those who know him are "clean."  He explained that He was the vine and we are the branches, taught on our future dwelling in His Father's house, and He instituted the Lord's Supper.  He revealed His betrayer, and He promised the Holy Spirit to us.  All of this took place in the course of a supper, which the other gospels identify as a Passover meal.

But something we sometimes miss is that Jesus, having earlier this week summarized the whole Law in two commandments, now offers a third to be kept by His disciples.  The two summary commandments we may remember:
  1. "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind" (Matt. 22:37)
  2. "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." (Matt. 22:39)
Now, Jesus offers #3, calling it "a new commandment," and requiring it as a proof that we are His followers:
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have love you, you also are to love one another.  By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another (John 13:34-35)
Who does the loving here?  His disciples.  And who are they to love?  One another--the rest of the disciples, or what we call Christ's Body, the Church.

If we read this passage from the standpoint of Jesus' love for us and His desire for us to love each other deeply, it takes on a powerful new meaning.  He washes disciples' feet because He loves us, and He wants us to wash each others' feet because we love each other.  We draw life from Christ the true vine, but we share in that life together.  The Spirit will come because Jesus loves us, but He comes to us, collectively, binding us together even as He binds us to Christ.

Further, if we take Jesus' three commands as the summary of what He wants us to become as His grace transforms us, it looks like this:

  1. We love God supremely, with everything we are and have.
  2. We love others humbly, putting their needs on equal footing with ours
  3. We love the Church sacrificially, putting our collective good ahead of individual desires
This is what Jesus modeled in the Upper Room, and even more powerfully in the Garden and on the Cross.
Pray today that we will fulfill this high and holy calling.

Wednesday, March 28, 2018

The Wednesday of Holy Week

[This is the fourth post in a series on the week of Jesus' passion, first posted in 2012.]
Text: Matthew 26:14-16
Theme:  Betrayal and fake faith

Wednesday during the Passion Week has been difficult for commentators to deal with, because while other days are specifically noted through entering and leaving Jerusalem, or the relation of the day to Passover, or some other detail as to what Jesus did.  As Sherlock Holmes would say, "When you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth" (Doyle, 91).  Now if we can assign all of Jesus' other recorded activities to other days, then the conclusion is that Jesus spent Wednesday in private fellowship with the disciples and the family of Simon the Leper: Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, in Bethany.  The next day would be the second most painful of his life.

But that doesn't mean everyone was idle.  Only on a day when everyone was left to themselves would Judas have the freedom to make a quick trip (probably less than a 30 minute walk) to the Temple precincts where he could arrange to betray Jesus.

The actions of Judas are epic in scope, and have led to all sorts of speculation.  How could one who had seen all he had seen come to such a point?  There had been no mistreatment by Jesus or the disciples--he had even been made treasurer of the group (Jn. 12:6).  Some have thought he had tried to orchestrate a move that would force Jesus to act against Rome.  More liberal scholars have even suggested that he acted with Jesus' covert blessing to bring things to a head.  And others have suggested that after discovering that Jesus would not fight Rome for independence, he had become disenchanted and disgusted.

Ultimately, we don't know his lesser motivations.  But Jesus offers a number of clues.  Here is a list of what He, John, and Matthew have told us about Judas:

  • Judas was not "clean"--cleansed from his sin.  "You [the disciples] are clean, but not all of you." For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, "Not all of you are clean." John 13:10-11
  • Judas was led by Satan--"...the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray [Jesus]" John 13:2
  • Judas was "the son of destruction" who is specifically said to be "lost" John 17:12
  • Judas was "a devil" John 6:70
  • Judas was a thief  John 12:6
  • Judas' sorrow over betraying innocent blood lacks any expression of repentance toward God or toward Jesus  Matt. 27:4-5
If we simply take what the Scripture says, we must conclude that Judas was, from the beginning, a fake.  He was known from the beginning by Jesus as the one who would betray Him.  His only comments recorded are lies--whether about Mary's expensive ointment for Jesus, or denying that he was the betrayer, or greeting the Lord with a kiss.

But he was a good faker.  None of the rest of the twelve knew he was the betrayer until he did the deed.  Even when he left the upper room, they thought he was on a mission for Jesus.

Such fakers are still among us.  God, by his grace, will open the eyes of some of them (or you, if you are a faker reading this--and this may be His warning to you to repent).  Others will continue to deceive everyone else until they do something to reveal their loyalty, or maybe they will go to the grave deceiving us, and be exposed only at the Judgment.  They may even join the chorus of those crying out, "Lord, Lord did we not prophesy in your name (Judas did), and cast out demons (Judas did), and do many might works in your name (Judas did)"(Matt 7:22).

And they will hear what Judas will hear, "I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness."

Faking faith is deadly, and it can't succeed before the one Judge who matters.  

Let's pray that God opens the eyes and hearts of fakers we may know (even if we don't know they are fakers).  And perhaps we might need to ask the Lord Jesus the question even his true followers asked that next night when he told them betrayal was coming, "Lord, it's not me, is it?  I'm not faking, am I?"

Tuesday, March 27, 2018

The Tuesday of Holy Week

Jesus and his disciples at the Temple
[This is the third post on the week of Jesus' passion, which I first posted in 2012.]

Text: Mark 11:19-13:37 (Matt. 21:19b-25:46)
Theme: Teaching

On way back into Jerusalem Tuesday morning, the disciples see the cursed fig tree has died, from the roots, so it couldn't have been a killer frost, bug, or blight.  They are amazed, but Jesus tells them that faith in Him enables followers to see huge problems or barriers (which is what mountains often symbolized) moved aside--and of course the biggest barrier we all face is that between us and our Holy God.  

Arriving in the Temple courts, Jesus spends his entire day facing tricky questions and teaching difficult truths.  His enemies try and trap Him in His words, but He not only escapes, but ties them up in theological knots.  He points out their ambivalence toward John the Baptist, shows the difference between saying we will obey authority and actually obeying it--an attitude his opponents clearly manifested toward God's powerful Word through Jesus.  He exposes Pharisees and Sadducees as having faulty theology, summarizes the whole Law in the two great commandments, and raises the thorny issue that the Bible says that David's Lord was also David's son.  He pronounces woes on scribes and Pharisees, laments over Jerusalem (once again quoting Ps. 118:26 as needing to happen again before the city sees Him for who He is--something yet to occur), and takes time to praise a poor widow's generous heart.  Finally, He spends a great deal of time with the disciples teaching on events surrounding the destruction of the Temple, the signs of His coming at the end of the age, and what the kingdom's coming will be like.  As Jesus left the Temple and the city, He was not only teaching about its future destruction, He was leaving it for the last time of his own accord.  His next departure would be on Good Friday, carrying a cross.

Jesus' teaching in one day encompasses a full course of theological study!  I wish I could have been there taking copious notes, but then all I would have is what the Bible gives me.  I'd want to ask questions!!!  There is so much still for me to learn.

That may be why this one day has chapters dedicated to it--and I hope that you might take the time to read them, or at least one of the sets of text listed above.  Jesus had much to say that we needed to hear.  We still do.  Today, as we reflect on all that Jesus said for our benefit, let's pray and ask the Spirit of God to drive us to see our need of the Word of God to instruct us, and to cause in us a craving for the pure milk we find in that precious Word.

Monday, March 26, 2018

The Monday of Holy Week

[This is the second in a series of posts on Holy Week, which I originally posted in 2012.]


Text:  Mark 11:12-19
Theme:  Curses!

A mature fig tree
Jesus went into Jerusalem from Bethany, and on the way sees a fig tree that has its leaves out in the spring.  It was not the season for figs, but a fig tree in leaf would already have little, edible, "figlets" that would become figs and were a simple treat to eat.  This tree didn't have them, and so Jesus curses it, because it held the promise of fruitfulness without the reality.  This sets the stage for the next event.

Arriving at the Temple, Jesus, for the second time, attacks the commerce taking place in what is often called "cleansing the Temple."  But he doesn't cleanse it, he "curses" it with words taken right out of Isaiah and Jeremiah rebuking the Israelites for their unfaithfulness.  As rightful King arriving on Palm Sunday, he had looked with a look of evaluation the evening prior before going to Bethany.  Now he has rendered his judgment that the Temple's role was finished.  This beautiful edifice looked "fruitful" religiously, but in fact it had become the opposite through the corruption of its controllers.

The fig tree was an established symbol of Israel.  The Temple was the heart of Israel's worship of God.  In his actions Jesus was passing divine judgment on the nation and its worship.  While both showed the promise of bearing fruit, neither actually did so.

As we consider our walk with Christ during this Passion Week, we might want to do some "fruit inspecting" concerning ourselves.  Do we profess great love for Jesus, but manifest little evidence of it in our lives?  Paul was not above warning professing believers to do self-examination to see if we have true faith (2 Corinthians 13:5).  But even true believers must sometimes acknowledge that our fruitfulness has been adversely affected by a lack of abiding in Christ.  Perhaps our prayer might be that the Father--whom Jesus calls the Vinedresser (John 15:1) might come and do his work of pruning us as branches so that we might bear more fruit (John 15:2).

Sunday, March 25, 2018

Palm Sunday--The First Day of Holy Week

[This will be the first of seven posts this week about "Holy Week," the time between Jesus' triumphal entry and his resurrection. First posted in 2014, this post and the following six are offered to help you focus on the events of Holy Week]

In the weeks leading up to what we call the "Triumphal Entry," Jesus had been moving through the region around Jerusalem, Judea, and the region beyond the Jordan, doing a choreographed tour that was designed to avoid direct confrontation with the Pharisees and yet set up a moment of grand tension and climax.

Staying out of site and then coming to Bethany to raise Lazarus.

Joining the pilgrims across the Jordan and making his way toward Jerusalem for his final Passover, healing the blind man Bartimaeus as he went.

Stopping in Jericho long enough to have a party in Zacchaeus' house and welcoming that tax collector into the kingdom.

Heading toward Jerusalem, but lagging behind the crowd so that they would be there when he finally arrived on Sunday.

Having a feast at Lazarus' house, emphasizing that miracle and causing no small amount of despair among his enemies.

Then, finally, riding into Jerusalem on a donkey's colt, in fulfillment of Zechariah's prophecy.

No one who knew their Bibles could doubt what Jesus was doing or what is meant. The Pharisees and chief priests certainly understood. The king had come to Jerusalem.

There was only one problem. Jerusalem and its leaders didn't want this king--or at least the kind of kingship he represented to them. This was also in fulfillment of prophecy, but it still meant that, by their rejection, they were sealing their own doom and the destruction of their beloved city.

However, the story does not end there. The week between Palm Sunday and Easter, called "Holy Week" by many, was a time of much teaching and preparation by Jesus, pointing to his coming death, but also to the culmination of history, when he would return to earth, again presenting himself as a King. This time, there would be no option being presented, however. He would come in power and glory, taking vengeance on his enemies and redeeming his people.

This Palm Sunday, we can join the chorus of those on the streets crying out "Hosanna"--meaning "save now!"  Thankfully, we know that through his death, he has secured that salvation, and his resurrection is the proof. We also now know that he will be king, and it will be amazing.

Keep returning this week for posts on the events of Christ's passion during Holy Week.

Saturday, March 17, 2018

Kidnapped for Christ

Lessons from childhood turn a victim into a victor

Nothing can strike fear in the heart of a parent like a threat to a child, and kidnapping is one of those horrible nightmares we hope never comes near. But a long time ago, it happened to a boy from a very wealthy family. He hadn't been especially targeted, but pirates had landed near his coastal home and he was caught and carried off to be a slave. Others were killed, and he had no knowledge of what happened to his family.

Now a captive and a slave, he was sold and for six years he was forced to work in fields, tending animals for his master. But during this time, he found himself thinking a lot about lessons he had been taught as a child. His parents and grandparents had been strong Christians, but he had not taken their faith very seriously, even though they made him learn the scriptures and listen to lessons about the Bible. He began to go over these lessons and verses in his mind until he realized that he believed them--he had become a Christian!

After six years, he had a dream (or a vision--he wasn't sure which), where he heard a voice tell him he was going home, and his ship was ready. Knowing that he would be killed if he was captured, he escaped one night and fled to a seaport, where he found a foreign ship that was leaving--he got on and escaped. The ship made it back to his homeland, but the sailors didn't know the place, and it was not familiar to anyone. For a month the crew wandered, and nearly starved. But our young hero told them to pray and trust God, and sure enough, a herd of wild pigs came along--pork chops! Soon they found the way to his home, and he was reunited with the family he thought was lost!

That is an amazing story as it is, but it actually gets better. As our young man (now in  his early 20s) thought about what God had done, he began to have another thought--the people who had captured him had no hope of salvation because the gospel he had believed had never been taught there. An idea began to form in his mind, and it led to his preparing himself to be a Christian minister and missionary. His goal was incredible--he would go back to the people who had enslaved him, even though his return would mean a death sentence as a runaway slave.

He went. When he arrived, no one would believe that he had come back, but he told them why he had come. And through his teaching, his prayers, and the courage God gave him, the people there began to accept the gospel--at first just a few, but then more and more, than then chiefs and whole villages and clans, until this became a more "Christian" land than where he had been born. People began to tell stories about him doing miracles, but he never said anything about them himself--he just highlighted his faith in the God who saved him, and allowed him to be kidnapped so that he would believe.

Our hero, of course, is Patrick, and today is St. Patrick's Day in honor of the day that it is believed that he died in the land where he had been a slave and became a missionary--Ireland.

Never underestimate the importance of teaching a child the truth--even if he or she isn't interested. Never doubt the ability of God to use unexpected and undesirable circumstances to change a life. And never rule out any sense of calling to share God's truth with people who need it, even if it makes you afraid (with good reason!).

Patrick taught many prayers to his people, and one of them is a favorite of mine that we have used at times in church services. It is called "The Breastplate" (a piece of armor that protects the upper body). Here it is:
I bind unto myself today
The strong name of the Trinity,
By invocation of the same,
The Three in One and One in Three.

I bind this day to me for ever,
By power of faith, Christ's Incarnation;
His baptism in the Jordan River;
His death on cross for my salvation;
His bursting from the spicèd tomb;
His riding up the heavenly way;
His coming at the day of doom;
I bind unto myself today.

I bind unto myself the power
Of the great love of the Cherubim;
The sweet 'Well done' in judgment hour;
The service of the Seraphim,
Confessors' faith, Apostles' word,
The Patriarchs' prayers, the Prophets' scrolls,
All good deeds done unto the Lord,
And purity of virgin souls.

I bind unto myself today
The virtues of the starlit heaven,
The glorious sun's life-giving ray,
The whiteness of the moon at even,
The flashing of the lightning free,
The whirling wind's tempestuous shocks,
The stable earth, the deep salt sea,
Around the old eternal rocks.

I bind unto myself today
The power of God to hold and lead,
His eye to watch, His might to stay,
His ear to hearken to my need.
The wisdom of my God to teach,
His hand to guide, his shield to ward,
The word of God to give me speech,
His heavenly host to be my guard.

Against the demon snares of sin,
The vice that gives temptation force,
The natural lusts that war within,
The hostile men that mar my course;
Or few or many, far or nigh,
In every place and in all hours
Against their fierce hostility,
I bind to me these holy powers.

Against all Satan's spells and wiles,
Against false words of heresy,
Against the knowledge that defiles,
Against the heart's idolatry,
Against the wizard's evil craft,
Against the death-wound and the burning
The choking wave and the poisoned shaft,
Protect me, Christ, till thy returning.

Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

I bind unto myself the name,
The strong name of the Trinity;
By invocation of the same.
The Three in One, and One in Three,
Of whom all nature hath creation,
Eternal Father, Spirit, Word:
Praise to the Lord of my salvation,
salvation is of Christ the Lord.