Wednesday 04/13/22
Week of His Passion
Message – Entering the week of Passion with Him
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Entering the week of Passion with Him
As I told you on Sunday, the week of Christ’s passion has for a long time been a time of reflection for me. It has become a week used to walk through that week with Him in my studies and in my heart.
To imagine being an Israelite of that day, who is faced with making a decision about Who this man is.
To imagine being a disciple, facing the mixture of emotions and conflicting thoughts regarding the surprising way this week was playing out, as opposed to how it started.
To imagine being Jesus, Who was facing a set of difficulties all His Own. How He might have found solace in time of prayer and of worship.
Finally, what it is to be me… 2022 (or whatever year it may be that I am working through these reflections). Questions like these might come to mind:
- Am I who I would like to be in relation to my Lord and Savior?
- Both metaphorically and literally within my heart – What side of the divide do I find myself on, regarding Who He is and Who I allow Him to be in my life?
- Is He Lord, not just in word but… really Lord?
- Do I genuinely revere Him?
- Do I honor Him from the core of who I am… do I admire Him or like Peter found about himself, do I just really like Him…like a friend? [See John 21:15-17]
The week leading up to Jesus’ death was fraught with difficulties! Difficulties in situations, confrontations, disappointments, disillusionments, shattered expectations… all culminating in a plot to kill Jesus aided by treason of one of His Own disciples and the denial of one of those closest to Him!
The Gospel of John is probably the most chronological of all the gospels, but it is strangely silent regarding Jesus’ ministry during the week of His passion. So in attempting to discover a general order of events, I turned to the unlikely Gospel of Mark.
I am told that due to the way in which Mark and Luke recorded the events of Jesus’ life, with very little differences in chronology between them, they are the best guides for a “general” sequence of events. However, it should be know that a chronological order was never the intent of ANY of the gospels.
The events outlined by Mark beginning in the 11th chapter are as follows…
Mark 11
- Jesus curses the fig tree – 12-14
- Cleansing of the Temple – 15-19
- Explains the fig tree – 20-25
- In the temple Jesus’ authority is challenged by the chief priests and experts in the law – 27-33
Mark 12
- Parable of the tenants – 1-12
- Paying taxes to Caesar – 13-17
- Sadducees challenge the resurrection – 18-27
- The great commandment – 28-34
- Jesus destroys a distorted idea regarding “the Messiah” and warns against the “experts of the law” – 35-40
- The widow’s offering – 41-44
Mark 13
- Jesus foretells the temple’s destruction, answers questions about it and the end of the age and tells the sign of beginning of the tribulation – 1-23
- Describes rapture (not called by that name) and teaches regarding it – 24-37
Mark 14
- The chief priests and experts in the law plot Jesus’ murder two days before Passover – 1-2
- Jesus is anointed at Bethany – 3-9
- Judas collaborates with those plotting against Jesus – 10-11
- Passover with the disciples – 12-25
- Foretells Peter’s denial – 26-31
- Prays in the garden of Gethsemane – 32-42
These represent just a sampling of the events of that week offered to us in scripture, and the ones we see in scripture are themselves only a sampling of all that really happened.
But that was THEN and THIS is NOW!
Israel rejoiced at His coming to Jerusalem and they were hailing Him as King just as Daniel foretold in Daniel 9:24-27 and is the fulfillment of the 69th week in the “70 weeks of Daniel”.
The account in Mark, reminds us of what we read on Sunday from Matthew…that those who went before Jesus as He entered Jerusalem were saying,
“Hosanna! ‘BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD!’ (10) Blessed is the kingdom of our father David That comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”
Nonetheless, we know that what the Jews said – they said in pretense. It came rising up form their hearts from what they expected to get out of Him. No doubt, many of them knew this was the 69th week in Daniel’s prophecy.
But they were looking for a conquering king – to free them from Roman rule and establish the independence of the Jewish nation, beginning in Jerusalem – their capital.
What they saw through that upcoming week, was someone entirely different than they expected and so, someone entirely different than they wanted!
In that week…
- Jesus entered the temple and drove out the money changers (for a second time).
- He taught some unpopular parables.
- His authority was challenged.
- He encouraged them to pay taxes to Caesar (this was a big one)
- He confirmed the belief in the resurrection which made Him unpopular with the Sadducees.
- He warned people about the scribes – which undoubtedly upset the scribes.
- He put the pharisees in their place a few times – even pronouncing 7 woes upon them.
- He foretold the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple (also not popular)
- He spoke about the coming of the Son of Man (Which is Who He was – but this would have confused them – because they did not see the setting aside of the Jewish nation, the time of Gentiles and a second coming – the only interpreted ONE coming of Messiah – the one in which He would rule the earth.)
- He again foretold His death and that it would be by crucifixion which they rejected since Messiah’s kingdom was to last forever. They did not have eyes to see where Daniel, Isaiah and others foretold Hid death AND resurrection.
All of this conspired together to reveal a different Jesus than the one they thought they had honored and shouted Hosanna to, at the beginning of the week!
The conflict between the Jesus they expected and the Jesus they encountered was profound, and their disillusionment with Him ran so deep, that by week’s end they were shouting something very different regarding Him.
So, I find myself asking, how is Jesus different in reality, than He is in my mind… and I invite you to ask the same of yourself.
Why is this question so important? Well, the question isn’t but what it reveals is!
Our expectations of someone are not only what initially gravitates us into a commitment of relationship, but it largely drives our subsequent devotion to it as well.
Every relationship begins with baseless and even unreasonable expectations, but as the relationship endures – those unrealized expectations will have a crippling effect on any true potential for a joyful and fulfilled life if they are not revisited and where necessary – re-evaluated and altered.
Even in natural relationships, what we are prone to is control – not love.
We want someone for who we want them to be, rather than for who they really are.
It requires commitment and love to continue with devotion undiminished if who we expected someone to be is different, in some key points, than what we really desire.
Can we change? Should we? Well yes, and if the person we are talking about is Jesus our Lord, God and Savior than most certainly YES!
A few years ago I mentioned to you that Francis Chan one time offered a comparative example between heavenly praise and what passes for praise here on earth.
He pointed to the heavenly hosts in God’s presence who are constantly crying out “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty. Who was and is and is to come… Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty. Who was and is and is to come…” over and over and over throughout the centuries.
Then he asked something like this…
Did it ever occur to you that the reason they do not get bored with this, the reason they do not walk away sometimes and say one to the other, “man praise and worship really wasn’t that great today…you know I get tired of how repetitious the music is. I wish we could do something different sometimes!”
No, they are entirely enamored with Him and engrossed by Him…totally caught up in the experience of being in His presence.
I don’t think those words they say are scripted – I think they are the natural outpourings of their hearts – as they stand in His presence.
I think this because, it seems to me that life itself makes it clear that God does not seem to like “scripted responses”. As such, I have to believe the worship pouring out of these amazing beings is coming from their core, and that with a sincerity which would make us blush in embarrassment when compared to our greatest expressions of worship.
Why do you think they can praise over eons with no visible sign of the genuinness of the praise diminishing?
I believe it is because they can see Him, to some degree or another, as He really is, and the effect that has on their soul compels all that is honest and sincere in them to respond instinctively to what they see – to WHO they see!
Who is the “Jesus you expect?”
Are you willing to wrestle with the fact that regardless of Who we are expecting Jesus to be, whatever that may look like to you – He is in fact, different on some level! We are, after all, looking through a glass dimly and Paul said, that we know NOTHING yet as we ought to know it.
[This open question was for the actual service only and was edited out of the recording.]
I am opening the floor now for some honest input. I DO NOT want “Well I think that some people…” statements. This is a time for being honest…being vulnerable…being transparent, not hypothetical.
We confess our sins one to another and pray for one another – but why? Just so we can feel better by venting and praying? NO! So we can overcome and be healed!
I’ll spearhead this, because as a shepherd it is not responsible to lead you where I am not willing to go.
[Service only portion ended]
The questions we face
Again this is not about “problems”…this is about inward struggles against the flesh and against what Jesus may be asking of you.
The questions are:
- Do we love Him enough to seek Him for Who He really is?
- Are we devoted enough to Him to remain completely His when we see Him to be different than we had thought or hoped?
On Sunday we even saw that Jesus was different than what the disciples had expected, and they fell into deceptions and temptations because of it.
The most famous of which, I believe, was when He told them that they were going to have to “eat My flesh and drink My blood or you can have no shared experience with Me!” [John 6:53-58]
Man…they wanted to bolt after that – and would you? Honestly…wouldn’t you?!
But the words He had spoken to them over those years had bound them to Him and they said, “where would we go?”
Then in the events towards the end of this upcoming week of Passion, Peter was offended.
First when Jesus knelt to wash his feet and Peter told Him “Never Lord – You will NEVER wash my feet”. Again Jesus’ reply was – “If I don’t, you can have no shared experience with Me”. So, broken by these words Peter says, “then not my feet only Lord, but also my hands and my head!”
Then again, Peter was offended when Jesus told him he would deny Him.
Peter passionately declared his undying devotion with the words, “though everyone else forsake you I would die with you”… “Peter, before the rooster crows 3 times you will have denied you ever knew Me”.
What caused Peter’s fall there? Some unequivocally claim that pride was the only culprit, but I’m convinced otherwise! I mean, make no mistake, there was a fair amount of pride that Peter’s exclamation, but I believe the reason for his denial ran much deeper than that, as it often does with us humans.
Up until that week, especially that one moment in the garden, Jesus had always been the Teacher no one could best.
No one could…
- outsmart Him in a discussion
- corner Him with their arguments
- …and they couldn’t even lay their hands on Him to kill Him though they’d tried before – even recently!
But that night, in the garden, Peter encountered a Jesus he did not expect! A Jesus, Who could be taken by sword and carried off to judgment.
Man…didn’t see that coming!
Now don’t loose the fact that this isn’t really about Peter, this is about me…it is about you… but you know, it is real easy to say, “Lord I’d die with You” when you truly believe He could never die!
Much like many Christians say, “Lord, I’ll live for you” – not realizing that the road He’s called you to, requires you to forsake your own dreams and aspiration and die daily with Him! That without that, there can be no true “shared experience and live” with Him. Paul understood that the call to intimacy was a call to suffer and die with Him. (See Philippians 3:7-11)
But what about when they haul Him off and nail Him to a tree?
Where is our faith and undying devotion then?
I mean, what do we do with a Jesus like that?
The sacred, protected and guarded Jesus of our imaginings will never challenge us – but none of us are safe against being offended and disillusioned with the REAL Jesus.
He is not what you expected and that is something all true lovers of God will HAVE to cope with if they endure in their relationship with Him to the end.
As I often do, I turned to Michael Card to bring some of these thoughts into focus and I found it in his song ‘What will it take to keep you from Jesus’.
The link to the song will be on the website, but I will read the words for you now…
What will it take to keep you from Jesus
Keep you from heeding His call
The simple excuse of a heart that is hard
A reason… that’s nothing at all!
And there was a man who was owned by his money
He was as rich as could be
but deep in his heart was a voice that was crying
telling him he wasn’t free.
When he questioned the Master
concerning his problem
the answer took his breath away.
For his money, that had come to mean more than his soul
forever would stand in his way.
What will it take to keep you from Jesus
Keep you from heeding His call
The simple excuse of a heart that is hard
A reason…. that’s nothing at all.
So many excuses and so many lies
are blocking the Light and the Way,
but the final decision to follow the Lord
can shatter and blow them away.
Once there was one who was lame in his body
Sick in his body and soul.
Though he didn’t know all the facts about Jesus
he knew that he longed to be whole.
So with some of his friends
He went seeking and found Him
but so many stood in their way.
So they tore through the roof
and they lowered him down
for nothing could keep him away.
What will it take to keep you from Jesus
Keep you from heeding His call
The simple excuse of a heart that is hard
A reason…. that’s nothing at all.
And how long before you stop with your reasons
take your defenses away?
It’s only a lie that keeps you from following
don’t let it stand in your way!
Blessings!
