“Why do you seek the living One among the dead?  He is not here, but He has risen.”

These words of the angel, found in Luke 24:5-6, reflect not only the greatest joy of Passion Week but also the greatest hope of all time. The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is God the Father’s consummate validation of His Son, His ministry and His power over sin and the grave. It secures the victory that the writer of Hebrews describes in Hebrews 2:14-15:

14Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, 15and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.

And it gives us the living hope that Peter writes about in 1 Peter 1:3:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

No wonder Satan goes to such extreme—and even ridiculous—measures to try and deny its truth.

We will try to comprehend the realities of this day and let us begin by considering the disciples. They would never know a greater emotional swing within a twenty-four hour period. Can you imagine any human being ever experiencing such a sway of emotions? Nothing is more hopeless than Christ remaining in the grave but nothing is more hopeful than Him out of it. To go from the abyss of despair to the pinnacle of hope represents an emotional distance second to none. And it happened to them in a single day.

This day began with a strange combination of love and despair. Several women are enroute to the tomb with burial spices to anoint the body of Jesus. They are motivated by a courageous love; remember, it is not popular to be a follower of Jesus. The Jewish leadership had long since decided to excommunicate those who believed in Him (John 9:22) and now that He is dead, perhaps they will take more severe measures against those closest to Him. But these women care not as love is greater than fear and their attitude must be like that of Esther centuries earlier, “If I perish, I perish” (Esther 4:16).

However, that does not deny the despair they also feel. Jesus is dead and even if the religious leaders understood His prophecies of resurrection (Matthew 27:63-66) the disciples did not. It was hidden from them until it actually happened. Remember again John 20:9 is written after Jesus arose, “For as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead.”

The agony that began on Friday has no end in sight. On the contrary, from the disciples’ perspective it is only beginning. The last sound sleep they knew occurred in Gethsemane. Would it be the last they would ever know? Would Peter ever doze off without seeing the look Jesus gave him after his denials (Luke 22:61-62)? The rest of the disciples abandoned Him; could they ever shake off the guilt that shakes a person restlessly through the night? The women slept no better, either, though out of sorrow, not shame.

Thus they began this day fatigued and despondent. Hopeless walks with them as they walk to the tomb. Joy belonged to a former life. They did not know what to expect for the near future, let alone the distant. They would never live again, only exist. Life without Christ had no meaning. The incarnate Son of God—the perfect embodiment of love, holiness, purity, truth and every other virtue—was gone. Crucifixion had no recovery. And if the Father had forsaken Jesus, what would become of them? Perhaps the Romans hunting them down would be a merciful coup de grace. Why carry on?

Such thoughts grossly understate the mindset of Jesus’ followers as it is impossible to describe their trauma. Whatever despair, hopelessness, or disillusionment you and I have ever known does not remotely compare to this. That is because there is no greater loss than losing Jesus Christ. Try to let that thought sink into your soul as deeply as possible.

But just as they failed to comprehend God’s plan on Friday, neither did they comprehend it today. As the women approach the tomb, their eyes deceive them. The stone has somehow moved. Weren’t they just discussing who would move it? And as they enter the tomb, a new disbelief overtakes them. Jesus’ body is gone. How can this be? Who would have had a reason to move Him? Suddenly two men stand before them in dazzling white and their disbelief turns to terror as they bow to the ground.

“Why do you seek the living One among the dead? He is not here, but He has risen. Remember how He spoke to you while He was still in Galilee, saying that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.”

As they heard the angels speak these words to them, they knew their senses were no longer playing tricks on them. Why? Because of what we read next in verse 8, “And they remembered His words.”

These women now trembled with joy as they ran back to Peter and the rest of the disciples who greet this glorious news with disbelief. But their faith will turn to sight when they behold the glorified Christ later that day. And mere words once again fail to describe their joy.

Jesus would appear to the disciples on at least five occasions over the next forty days. The first was the evening of His resurrection, the second a week later when Thomas was in their midst (John 20:26-29), the third being at the Sea of Galilee where Jesus restored Peter to ministry (John 21), the fourth being on a mountain in Galilee where He also appeared to five hundred other brethren (Matthew 28:16-20, 1 Corinthians 15:6), and the fifth at the time of His ascension to heaven (Acts 1:3-9). These times would all be for a final preparation for their upcoming ministry as we see in Acts 1:3, “To these He also presented Himself alive, after His suffering, by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days, and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God.”

We can hardly imagine what Christ taught them during that time. What a thrilling and fascinating time they must have had with Him, not to mention the deepest joy and love they could possibly know.

What would Christ have us learn in our day? There are many things that we can learn about His resurrection but let me share five things with you.

1.It is the Father’s validation that everything Christ said about Himself was true. Romans 1:4, “[Christ] was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord.” This does not mean that Jesus somehow failed to be the Son of God prior to the resurrection but rather that the resurrection is the final validation of that fact. In other words, if Jesus was not the Son of God then God raised a phony from the dead.

2.It proves to us that God accepted His work on the cross as a complete payment for our sins. Romans 4:25, “He who was delivered over because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification.”

Let us illustrate it this way. If a man is sentenced to prison for five years because he committed armed robbery, how do we know when the state is satisfied with the time he has served to pay his crime? When they release him. When he is walking the streets five years later, it is the state’s way of saying, “We are satisfied with the time you have served.” In the same way, God’s release of the Son from the “prison” of the grave testifies that He accepted the Son’s work on the cross as payment for our sins. If somehow the work of the cross were incomplete, God would never have raised the Son. That is one reason why salvation is totally a free gift—Christ has done it all. No good work or religion or anything else can add to what He has done.

3.It testifies of the absolute certainty that Christ will raise from the dead all who belong to Him and give them a glorified body to spend eternity with Him. Much of 1 Corinthians 15 is dedicated to this truth.

4.It demonstrates His complete victory not only over sin and death, but also over Satan. We saw that in Hebrews 2:14-15 above but listen also to Colossians 2:15, “When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He make a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.” The “rulers and authorities” Paul speaks of here are not civil rulers but rather angelic, namely, Satan and his demons. Think about it this way—Satan had every one of his resources at the tomb to try and keep Jesus in the grave. If he can do so then he will defeat his adversary. This is hell at its strongest but what happens? Heaven wins. And that is a victory that belongs to everyone who knows Christ.

5.It testifies of the certainty that Christ will come back and judge those who do not belong to Him. Listen to what Paul says to the men of Athens in Acts 17:30-31:

30Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, 31because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead (italics added).

Remember, Jesus only appeared to a select few after His resurrection, all of whom were believers. He did not appear to the world at large. In other words, when was the last time the world saw Him? On a cross…dead. And when will be the next time they see Him? In the sky, in glory, as He comes to judge them. Listen to Matthew 24:29-30:

29But immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 30And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.

God fully judged the Son so that all who truly are His children would never experience that judgment. May this be true for you. May you belong to Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, whom to know is life eternal (John 17:3). Call upon Him to save you today.

* * *

Is this hope yours? If not, it can be by sincerely and genuinely praying along these lines: “Dear God, I know that I am a sinner and deserve death and hell because of my sins. But I also know that Jesus Christ died on the cross to pay for my sins. I now repent and trust in Jesus Christ alone to save me and I accept His work as full payment for my sins. I receive the free gift of eternal life as I receive Him as my Lord and Savior. Thank You for forgiving me and for giving me eternal life. Amen.”

This must be the greatest day of paradox in all of Passion Week.  It is the forgotten day as nothing is said about it in Scripture.  Yet those who experienced it could never forget it.  Every movement they made, every word they uttered, every thought that passed through their minds was chiseled in the stone of their memories.  Such would stay with them forever as the moments agonized by, one laborious second after another.

It is a day of calm in the streets as a nervous sense of normalcy begins to resume over Jerusalem, at least as much as can be expected.  Yet it is also a bewildering day, even a ghostly one.  How can the people explain the coincidental earthquake and tearing of the temple curtain at the exact moment of Jesus’ death?  How can they explain the unprecedented three hours of darkness?  No eclipse lasts that long and even if they thought it to be one, how ironic that it would occur at the same moment as these other things.

Today is an eerie calm, like that of the hurricane’s eye as it passes over with its skittish and confused puffs of wind.  And it is a deceptive calm.  The religious leaders emerge with a tense glee thinking they have weathered the storm, that the moment of calamity has passed.  Little do they anticipate what will happen once that eye passes over.

That will happen a few hours and in anticipation of that, the demonic world is once again engaged in a flurry of activity.  Satan is marshaling his forces where he thinks they will be of greatest value to try and keep Christ in the grave.  Thus we would remember that on this day, like Wednesday, much is going on in the heavenlies even if it is relatively quiet on earth.

But for the disciples this was the most hopeless day of their lives, hopeless because they did not at all understand the resurrection let alone anticipate it.  “For as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead” (John 20:9).  And if we are to truly understand what is going on this day we must see it through this prism—the disciples were not expecting the resurrection, not in the least!

You and I have never studied the Calvary apart from Easter.  We cannot conceive of one without the other.  But for the disciples this day was Calvary before Easter, that brief and hopeless moment when they were adrift in a spiritual fog, not knowing where they were going, when it would lift or what would be on the other side.

For the eleven, the stillness of the day is anything but calming.  While Jesus’ torment is over, theirs has only begun.  No doubt they are exhausted due to a lack of sleep.  How could they sleep when visions of the previous day raced through their minds the moment they shut their eyes?  The silence is deafening as they wrench over their guilt of having abandoned Him.  Peter has wept bitterly over his denials; perhaps he hasn’t stopped.  Perhaps he never will as there is no lack of fuel for a condemning conscience.

It is the Sabbath but this day of rest offered no rest for their souls.  Their torment also extends to the fact that they would most likely be next.  Lest a movement arise over this martyred “Messiah,” the Jews and the Romans both would want to stamp out those who could make it happen.  The disciples could easily be next and they know it.  Which emotion governed them most—guilt or fear?  Perhaps they couldn’t tell themselves.

It is also a day of love and sacrifice.  Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus took Jesus’ body down from the cross through their own sorrow and tears.  They were members of the Sanhedrin and their love for Jesus would cost them their positions.  The Jewish records of the era make no mention of these men as being part of their body.  Their names were scrubbed from the record because of their devotion to Jesus.  They gave up their positions with no thought of gain.  They knew what this action would mean for them personally, but they still didn’t comprehend that Jesus would rise again.  There was nothing in it for them to take Jesus’ body down from the cross—only loss.  They did so simply for love’s sake.

For the broader group of disciples, today is equally mystifying and hopeless.  Jesus’ body lies cold and stiff in a silent grave.  How could the Messiah of God die?  How could a week that began so gloriously end in such tragedy?  How could the hope of the Triumphal Entry end in the despair of Calvary?  Did history ever record such a reversal of fortune?

Never before have the people of God known the despair of a day like this.  Not even Adam after his sin knew despair to this level because he had the promise of a Savior.  On this day that promise seems gone.

But just as their forefathers had no idea of what God would do at the Red Sea centuries earlier, so these had no idea what He was about to do now.  More than anything, it is a day of irony as in the shadow of the disciples’ greatest sorrow, their greatest hope is just around the corner.

How often are we able to identify with the disciples in a moment like this?  God does something in our lives that makes no sense whatsoever.  In fact, it seems to work totally opposite of that which is good.  Confusion sets in.  Perhaps guilt does too as we know we haven’t followed Him like we should.  Our minds may be traumatized as we can’t make sense of it all.  Tears are the result, maybe even a flood of them.  Fear of the future captures us and the days crawl by.  Hope seems to be gone.

As the disciples were men with feet of clay, so we are no different.  And if God can work through their weaknesses, then He can do the same though ours.  He has not forgotten our tears any more than He did theirs.  “You have taken account of my wanderings; put my tears in Your bottle.  Are they not in Your book?” (Psalm 56:8).

God offers us the same incredible hope in the midst of our despair, one that doesn’t even compare to theirs.  How does He do that?  By calling us to trust Him and to act upon His word.  Let us remember Peter as he points us to this hope—one he knows from his experience of this day—in 2 Peter 1:19, “And so we have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts.”

Is this hope yours because of your trust in Christ alone to save you?  If not, then come to Him today.

This cry of David, penned a millennium earlier, only begins to reflect the horror being experienced by his greater Son.  Is it possible to imagine a statement more laden with despair?  Such words eclipse Dante’s forlorn inscription, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”

Everything about Passion Week has moved towards this prophecy in Psalm 22:1 which our Lord fulfilled on Good Friday, a day unbroken from Thursday.  We left with Jesus and the disciples finishing the Last Supper and following that they sang a hymn and went to the Mount of Olives (Matthew 26:30).

Once they arrive Jesus prophesies that all will abandon Him.  If that isn’t enough, Jesus also tells Peter a second time that he will deny Him (Matthew 26:33-35; Mark 14:29-31).  But bravado will have none of that—Peter will stand by Jesus to the end!  Yet in just a few short moments, he and the others are lulled into slumber while they abandon their Lord to a solitary torment.  Agony of this kind forbids all sleep.  Yet selfishness justifies it.  The disciples would not have the vigilance of a sentry let alone the courage of a warrior.  Thus as the torches descend from Jerusalem, through Kidron and up to Olivet, Jesus alone is able to see them.

Satan’s moment is here.  The hour of darkness has come.  How tragic that our Savior would face it with no human support.  Yet His Father knew what He needed and therefore sent an angel to strengthen Him (Luke 22:43).  How did that happen?  We don’t know.  Perhaps the angel quoted a passage like Isaiah 49:5-6:

5And now says the Lord, who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant, to bring Jacob back to Him, so that Israel might be gathered to Him (for I am honored in the sight of the Lord, and My God is My strength), 6He says, "It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will also make You a light of the nations so that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth."

Having been strengthened, Jesus continues in prayer.  And as He anticipates what looms before Him, He experiences travail of soul unlike anything ever known.  His agony is not so much focused on the cruelty of crucifixion—perhaps the most barbaric form of torture ever devised—but rather on the horrific prospect of becoming sin for us.  What a strange paradox that the supreme focus of the Father’s love will now become the equal focus of His wrath.  Christ alone will know the fullness of each spectrum like no other.  And how ironic that in the place called Gethsemane, meaning “oil press,” the weight of this eternal moment would press blood and sweat from His pores.

There is no escape.  “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me” (Matthew 26:39).  If it were possible for God’s righteousness to redeem man any other way, He would have dispatched twelve legions of angels with lightening speed to deliver His beloved Son.  Never did a cry emerge from the human breast that the Father so desired to answer but could not.  A cross-less redemption was forever impossible and the Son submits, “yet not as I will, but as You will.”

That submission will include subjecting Himself to ridicule and scorn as He is dragged away to the Sanhedrin, the ruling body of Israel.  His trial is a farce unlike any other yet it is one whose verdict is insufficient; in order for the Messiah to die as the prophets predicted, further assistance was needed.  Though the plot to execute Jesus was Jewish in origin, it could not have happened without the willing assistance of their Gentile rulers.  One had the motivation, the other the means.  Guilt falls to all races, not just one.

Enter Pontius Pilate, a governor with no love lost for his subjects.  He began his rule in AD 26 by provoking the Jews with graven images of Caesar in Jerusalem.  And although he would eventually remove the images, an ominous precedent was set.  Several years later, for example, he brutally suppressed a protest against the use of temple funds to build an aqueduct, an event possibly highlighted in Luke 13:1.  Such cruelty would be his undoing and lead to his deportation in AD 36.

Thus his encounter with Jesus serves as another flashpoint between the Jews and him.  Yet this would neither be a day nor a Prisoner he would ever forget.  Pilate stands before no mere mortal; the claims of Jesus’ deity send a chill down his spine.  The haunt of his wife’s dream will become his own.  Forever.  He is used to seeing men tremble before him as he decides their fate.  Yet in a divine twist of irony, he trembles before the Prisoner as if his fate is being decided.  Listen to John 19.

7The Jews answered him, "We have a law, and by that law He ought to die because He made Himself out to be the Son of God."  8Therefore when Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid; 9and he entered into the Praetorium again and said to Jesus, "Where are You from?"  But Jesus gave him no answer.  10So Pilate said to Him, "You do not speak to me?  Do You not know that I have authority to release You, and I have authority to crucify You?"  11Jesus answered, "You would have no authority over Me, unless it had been given you from above; for this reason he who delivered Me to you has the greater sin."  12As a result of this Pilate made efforts to release Him…

Like so many throughout history, Pilate simply wants Jesus to go away.  But the One before whom every knee will bow does not go away, not for Pontius Pilate or anyone else.  He is forced to deal with Jesus, as are all men, and thus in condemning the Son of God he ultimately condemns himself.

Pilate has fatefully succumbed.  His Roman soldiers execute his decree by first putting Jesus through a scourging that rips away all but a semblance of humanity.  “So His appearance was marred more than any man and His form more than the sons of men” (Isaiah 52:14).  The torture continues as Jesus inches towards Calvary where He is to die ignominiously between two criminals.

And as He hangs impaled to the cross for six hours, Matthew gives an insightful perspective of what happens.  During the first three hours he focuses on the King under man’s wrath (26:33-44).  But for the last three hours he focuses on the King under God’s wrath as darkness falls upon the land and Jesus utters that horrid scream, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

The Son has been forsaken by the Father, something never known before or since.  Eternity’s line of demarcation has been drawn.  And why has the Father forsaken Him?  Because He has cast an eternal weight of wrath upon the Son as a complete and just payment for our sins.  Listen to this description from Stephen Charnock, a 17th century Puritan preacher:

Not all the vials of judgment that have or shall be poured out upon the wicked world…give such a demonstration of God’s hatred of sin, as the wrath of God let loose upon His Son.  Never did Divine holiness appear more beautiful and lovely than at the time our Saviour’s countenance was most marred in the midst of His dying groans.

God’s justice is on display as never before…or since.  If ever a moment caused the angelic world to stand still, this must have been it.  Not even the birth of Jesus captured their attention like this.  Why?  They have seen countless children born and thus had some idea of what it was for the Son of Man to enter the world.  But nothing could prepare them for His departure from it.  This is the greatest outpouring of God’s wrath they would ever see, now and for all eternity.  Even as dreadful as God’s judgments are in the book of Revelation, when they do occur they will be somewhat anticlimactic for the angels.  They will have "seen worse” and they would never see it again.

But what is explicit to the angels is virtually unknown to us.  Jesus’ cry of abandonment gives only a pinhole through which to peer; afar is a Grand Canyon of judgment lost to our sight.  No wonder we have such a hard time grasping the magnitude of suffering laid upon our Messiah, a magnitude that “pleased [the Father] to crush Him” (Isaiah 53:10).

So how do we comprehend the incomprehensible?  We cannot.  But lest inability despair us of comprehension altogether, let us seek to understand, however feebly, what our Savior endured.

Imagine, if possible, all the stars and planets being poured through a cosmic funnel upon the shoulders of a man.  The mythical Atlas would collapse in an instant.  But even that immeasurable yoke could scarcely compete with the infinitely heavier avalanche of wrath that fell upon Christ at Calvary, a wrath impossible to exaggerate.  If the nations of the earth are as a speck of dust before our God, then is the entire universe any less compared to what Christ bore for us?

Therefore it is no wonder that God rightly condemns all who refuse this gift of mercy.  To those who impugn, “What kind of God would cast men into hell?” truth responds, “The same God that would first cast hell upon His Son for you!”

And it is also no wonder that all will perish who believe the work of Christ alone cannot save, men who think they must bear the pebble which Christ somehow could not.  Such is the folly—and condemnation—of faith plus works.

The substitute has been provided.  The payment has been made.  The work of the cross satisfied the Father as only it could.  “As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied” (Isaiah 53:11).  God is never satisfied with the punishment unbelievers endure in the lake of fire, ere the flames would die.  Yet He was satisfied with Christ’s sufferings at Calvary.  “Who understands the power of Your anger and Your fury, according to the fear that is due You?” (Psalm 90:11).  Only the Son.  Christ alone will know the fullness of that fury, more so than all in hell combined.  No wonder Charles Spurgeon called the cross “hell squeezed into a cup.”  And no wonder Jesus would say, “It is finished!” (John 19:30).

Truly this is a “good” day even as it is the most terrible of days.  May the sorrow of the Suffering Servant be our cause for rejoicing.

If Wednesday is Passion Week’s intermission, then Thursday begins its second act.  The calm of Wednesday gives way to the flurry of Thursday, a day which runs into Friday.  And here the stage is set for the final scene between Jesus and His disciples.

It opens with Jesus and the disciples planning The Last Supper, the final Passover they would celebrate together.  The disciples would hardly begin to grasp the significance of this evening, demonstrating dullness, pride and even arrogance.  Jesus, however, would demonstrate the consummate faithfulness, giving them the final words they would need as His hour drew near.  And nowhere is His testimony of love more evident.

A great deal of attention is given to The Last Supper especially in John’s gospel.  John devotes no fewer than five chapters to this event which opens in John 13.  The key verse in these chapters is verse 1, “Now before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that His hour had come that He should depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.”  The Greek word for “end” is the word telos which not only means “the completion” but also “to the fullest.”

What does this tell us?  It tells us that Jesus loved His own not just to the very end of His life but also to the absolute limit, the fullest of His capacity.  His love towards them lacked nothing whatsoever; neither did it fail in the least, unlike the love of man.  Will His disciples, then or now, ever be able to comprehend love to that degree in this life?  Will they ever be able to comprehend the depth and fullness of God’s love towards them even in eternity?  Until the finite can plumb the infinite, the answer is “no.”  May this help all who belong to Him to understand more fully what a glory it is to be chosen as a vessel of mercy.

This fullness of love is first demonstrated as Jesus washes the disciples’ feet.  What a lesson in servanthood and humility!  Yet it was a lesson whose application would only be realized later.  As Jesus fulfilled His love to the disciples, Judas fulfilled his treachery by going out and betraying Him.  And immediately following that, “there arose also a dispute among them as to which one of them was regarded to be greatest” (Luke 22:24).  How dull we so often are to the lessons God wishes to teach, even when He is the Teacher Himself.  Peter, perhaps, is the dullest of the moment as he takes human greatness a step further.  He boasts of his faithfulness unto death, a boast that is met with the haunting words, “You will deny Me.”

Jesus continues as He celebrates the Passover with His disciples.  Consider this fact—the focus of this meal was the slain lamb; imagine participating in the Passover with the Lamb of God Himself.  That’s what it was for the eleven.  It was not the blood of an animal spread upon a doorpost that would be precious that evening; it would be the blood of the One who will bear His scars for all eternity.

Can we comprehend this moment?  Did the disciples?  Over 1400 years of Passovers pointed to this hour.  Over 1400 years of slain animals pointed to the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, the Lamb who “from the foundation of the world…has been slain” (Revelation 13:8).  And now they are beholding Him in their midst.  Meditate upon that, now and always, not just at this time of year.  The disciples would for the rest of their lives.

Because the centuries of Passovers looked forward to this moment, Jesus does something unprecedented in the ceremony.  “And while they were eating, Jesus took some bread, and after a blessing, He broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, ‘Take, eat; this is My body’" (Matthew 26:26).

We have heard these words so often and so often they go right past us.  Do we contemplate their magnitude?  If not, then consider this—where are these words in the Passover ceremony?  Nowhere.  Instead, these are words that are typically uttered at the communion table (1 Corinthians 11:24).  How is it that Jesus would speak them at Passover?

He can do so because in the midst of this last Passover we also have the first Communion.  Both ceremonies point to Christ from different directions.  The first would look ahead to the cross; the latter would look back to it.  Jesus would fulfill one ceremony and initiate another at the same time because He is the focal point of each.

Jesus then gives His great Upper Room Discourse in John 14-16 as He speaks to the disciples prior to His death and as He speaks to them, He also speaks to those who believe upon Him afterwards.  He promises the Holy Spirit in 14:26, "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.”

He would exhort them to abide in Him that they might bear much fruit in 15:4-5:

4Abide in Me, and I in you.  As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.  5I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.

He promises the fullness of God’s revelation, the New Testament, in 16:12-15:

12I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.  13But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.  14He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you.  15All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you.

He then gives His great High Priestly prayer in John 17 and here as He prays for the disciples, He also prays for those who would later believe, “I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word” (verse 20).  Thus we see that as Jesus began His time in the upper room by serving to the fullest those He loved, so He ends the same by praying to the fullest for those He loved.

Do we seek to contemplate that same love towards us, if we know Him?  Is God’s love towards His children something that is little more than an academic fact or do we seek to comprehend the fullness of it, even if we can never do so?  Do we seek to grasp the depth of 1 John 3:1, “See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God; and such we are.  For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.”  Do we let the fullness of that thought grasp us?  Remember, the love spoken of in John 13-17 is directed towards Jesus’ followers, not the world in general.

Behold this precious fact—God did not have to love us!  He could have sentenced us to damnation as He did the demons when they fell.  He could have passed us over for salvation if He chose.  Therefore let us seek to comprehend even more fully what it means for God to love us in this manner especially when He did not have to.  This is what our great Savior taught, demonstrated, and prayed for during His last moments with those whom “He loved…to the end” (John 13:1).

Does this love apply to you because you have trusted in Him as Lord and Savior?  If not, then cast yourself upon His mercy—and receive this love—today.

When we remember the birth of Christ we meditate on a silent night, and here as we remember His death we come upon a silent day, a day with scarcely a mention in Scripture, a day when virtually “nothing happened.”

In contrast to the high profile activity of Tuesday, Wednesday is the quietest day of Passion Week. However, spiritual forces are no less at work.  While stillness occupies the earth, that which is going on in the heavenlies must be feverish.  It is as though intermission has descended upon Passion Week—the curtain has drawn and nothing happens in the gallery while backstage all hands scurry to get everything in place.

It is certainly a good reminder that we never know what spiritual activity may be swirling around us regardless of how routine our circumstances may be.  “Be of sober spirit, be on the alert.  Your adversary, the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).  Like Job, we never know when we may be starring in God’s theater-in-the-round, surrounded by the angelic host who would either accuse us for our failure or worship for our faithfulness.

Yet this is not a day of complete inactivity as the hearts of men are always in motion for good or evil.  That is certainly the case for Judas where it is fatefully the latter.  Today he makes his final decision to betray Jesus, a decision which no doubt came on the heels of the yesterday’s confrontations.  There would be no joint effort between Jesus and the Jewish leadership to establish the Messiah’s rule now.  

True, he had seen tension between them before and even severe tension at that.  But with the thrill of Sunday and the crowd shouting “Hosanna to the Son of David,” perhaps Messianic fever would sweep Jerusalem.  Perhaps there could be a reconciliation where old enemies could become new friends and achieve the unity needed to overthrow the Romans.  Hope indeed seemed to spring eternal.

But something else eternal had been scripted on Judas’ heart, a heart with no heart for God.  He had followed Jesus from selfish ambition and now God was squeezing out that reality.  “I, the Lord, search the heart.  I test the mind…” (Jeremiah 17:10).  The clashes of Monday and Tuesday would kill whatever passion Judas still harbored.  Any hope of reconciliation was lost.  So was the cause.

Judas had given three years to follow Jesus and Jesus had disappointed him.  It was a bitter finale.  Jesus wouldn’t bring in the kingdom.  There would be no earthly glory, no applause from the nation.  And on a day when “nothing happened,” Judas made the decision that would seal his destiny.

What dwells in your heart on your “nothing” days?  What performance might you be giving to the angelic world?  Is it some form of sin or rebellion that needs to be addressed?  Is it indifference to the things of God?  Fixation on the cares of the world?  

Or is it worship, “singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:19)?  Is it praising God, even through tears, because “momentary, light affliction is producing an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comprehension, while we look not at the things which are seen, but the things which are not seen…the things which are…eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:17-18)?

How deeply do you consider the spiritual forces around you when no one else is watching?

Tuesday is one of the most active days of Passion Week.  In fact, over four chapters of Matthew (21:20-25:46) encompass this day.  Yet it is also one of the saddest days, surpassed in sorrow only by Friday. 

Why is that?  Because it depicts Israel's final rejection of her Messiah.  The climactic encounter between Jesus and the Jewish leadership crystalizes their rejection of Him and results in His final condemnation of Jerusalem and with it, the nation.

This day of conflict begins with Jesus and the disciples once again walking into the city according to Mark 11:20.  A day earlier Jesus cursed a fig tree with leaves but no fruit and the disciples now marvel that it has withered so quickly.  But why did Jesus curse the fig tree in the first place?

Israel is pictured as a fig tree several times in the Old Testament and often in the context of judgment.  A good example of this is found in Hosea 9:10, “I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness; I saw your forefathers as the earliest fruit on the fig tree in its first season.  But they came to Baal-peor and devoted themselves to shame.”  Another is Jeremiah 8:13, "’I will surely snatch them away,’ declares the Lord; ‘There will be no grapes on the vine, and no figs on the fig tree, and the leaf shall wither; and what I have given them shall pass away.'"  God will snatch Judah away because of her apostasy and later in Jeremiah 24 we see an entire chapter dedicated to this imagery, both of blessing and judgment.

Therefore this picture of a fig tree in the gospels is characteristic of Israel’s ultimate apostasy.  They had the appearance of fruitfulness because of their elaborate religion but bore no fruit in spite of God’s efforts to cultivate it.  Listen to Jesus' own parable in Luke 13:6-9:

6And He began telling this parable: “A man had a fig tree which had been planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and did not find any.  7And he said to the vineyard-keeper, ‘Behold, for three years I have come looking for fruit on this tree without finding any.  Cut it down!  Why does it even use up the ground?’  8And he answered and said to him, ‘Let it alone, sir, for this year too, until I dig around it and put in fertilizer; 9and if it bears fruit next year, fine; but if not, cut it down.”

The picture of Israel’s rejection of Christ is immediately met with the reality of the same.  The chief priests, scribes, and elders challenge Jesus’ authority as soon as He and the disciples enter the temple (Matthew 21:23ff).  But because they are not open to the Source of His authority, He will not reveal it to them.  He will reveal three parables, though, that illustrate their rejection of Him and the consequences to follow. 

Not to be outdone, the religious leaders try to come back with three tests of their own—the question of paying tribute to Caesar, the question of the resurrection by the Sadducees, and the greatest commandment.  However, all will learn you cannot trap God.  You cannot paint Him into a corner.  He will indeed stop every mouth in opposition to Him as Jesus silences His critics.  After them that He is both David’s Son and Lord (Matthew 22:41-46), He then goes into His final condemnation in Matthew 23, concluding with His chilling words in verses 37-39:

37O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her!  How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling.  38Behold, your house is being left to you desolate!  39For I say to you, from now on you shall not see Me until you say, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!" 

Truly the fig tree has withered.

Jesus will not be seen again in public until His crucifixion.  Therefore He spends the rest of this week in private with the disciples.  He still had much more to say to them in spite of their innate dullness.  Why do I say “dullness”?  Because as Jesus has condemned Israel for her rejection of Him, the disciples immediately comment on the temple in Matthew 24:1.  (Mark and Luke are more explicit in the disciples’ comments as they note the beauty of the temple.) 

But listen to Jesus’ response in verse 2, “Do you not see all these things?  Truly I say to you, not one stone here shall be left upon another, which will not be torn down."  Indeed, as we mentioned yesterday, the Romans fulfilled indeed these tragic events with the destruction of the temple in AD 70. 

Jesus’ response provokes the disciples’ question in verse 3, "Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?"  Jesus uses this to give His Olivet Discourse in chapters 24-25.  This deals with the events surrounding His Second Coming and is sometimes known as “The Little Apocalypse.”  Jesus concludes the day by spending the night at the Mount of Olives and will continue His teaching in the temple the next day (Luke 21:37-38).

* * *

What an eventful day, one that is filled with passionate words and emotions.  Perhaps we can call this “Passion Week” for more reasons than one.  So what can we take away?

Let us focus on the unprepared hearts of man, hearts that were unprepared for Jesus in His first coming.  They were unprepared for Him because of what we have previously seen—they were looking for a Messiah to deliver them from Rome, not their sins.  That was the condition of the hearts of men at His First Coming, yet just as many will be unprepared for Him in His Second Coming.  That is clear from the book of Revelation.

Is your heart prepared because you have trusted in Him alone to save you?  If not, then why delay?  “Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts…” (Hebrews 3:15).  His First Coming has passed but His Second Coming is nigh.  And while many are fascinated with the details of Matthew 24, they pay token heed to the warnings of chapter 25.

Jesus is indeed coming back as He told the disciples on the Mount of Olives and the primary reason He gave this prophecy is that we might be prepared for His return.  “2Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we shall be.  We know that, when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as He is.  3And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure” (1 John 3:2-3).

Is this Scripture true for you because you know Him?  Or do you merely know about Him?  There is a world of difference…an eternity of difference.  If you merely know about Him, then the words of judgment that Jesus spoke on this day will also have a haunting application for you.  But if you do know Him, then may God use all of these events—those past that surround Jesus’ First Coming and those future that surround His Second—to make our hearts more like those of His dear Son.

Since our first post served as a preparation to Passion Week, we now begin to look at its actual events and let us consider how momentous they are.

Jesus’ overall ministry is so significant “that even the world itself would not contain the books that would be written” about it (John 21:25).  Therefore when the Holy Spirit gave us the gospels, He drew from an archive larger than the Library of Congress.  He therefore omitted the vast majority of Jesus’ ministry and gave only a very few of the events He considered to be most important.  And of these, He saw fit to dedicate more than one-quarter to the last week of Jesus’ life.

Make sure that sinks in—one-quarter of the entire gospel account is devoted to Passion Week.  Think of the weight of that.  As a river moves slowly, mile and familiar mile, only to plunge into the drama of a cavernous waterfall, so the life and ministry of Jesus have moved steadily up to this climactic week.  None who beheld it could ever forget it.  Yet how unsuspecting they were as it began to unfold.

It did so on Sunday with Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, the magnificent day foretold by the Zechariah centuries earlier.  “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!  Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!  Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey” (Zechariah 9:9).

Imagine this sight—God’s long-awaited, promised Messiah coming to His own.  Do we understand the anticipation of this in the Jewish nation?  Can we comprehend the power of prophecy being fulfilled before our eyes?  Such an event carried with it a far greater impact than man’s first steps on the moon.  And it was only the beginning; this week would witness more fulfilled prophecy than any other in history.

But it would also be a week of new prophecy, much of it difficult and foreboding.  As Jesus receives the shouts of “Hosanna!” enroute to Jerusalem, His emotions are a mixture of joy and tears.  Note the prophecy He gives in Luke 19:41-44:

41And when He approached, He saw the city and wept over it, 42saying, "If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace!  But now they have been hidden from your eyes.  43For the days shall come upon you when your enemies will throw up a bank before you, and surround you, and hem you in on every side, 44and will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation."

This hard reality was fulfilled in the devastating destruction of Jerusalem during the Roman siege of AD 70 which razed the city and the Temple to the ground.  Israel failed to recognize her time of visitation.  Why?  Because men want one thing but often need another.  Has anything changed?

His countrymen hailed Him as the One who would deliver their nation; He rode in as the One who would deliver from their sin.

After Jesus entered Jerusalem He went to the temple and began healing the blind and the lame.  What was the reaction?

15When the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that He had done, and the children who were crying out in the temple and saying, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they became indignant, 16and said to Him, “Do you hear what these are saying?”  And Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read, ‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babes You have prepared praise for Yourself’?” (Matthew 21:15-16, Jesus quoting from Psalm 8:2). 

How precious that these humble children could declare His praises.  No doubt the throngs followed Him from the Kidron Valley outside the city directly to the temple.  You can just imagine these children waving some of the palm branches they picked up and then squealing in delight as they “saw the wonderful things that He had done.”  But the very events that brought joy to the children would bring hardness to the chief priests and scribes.  The same sun that melts the ice also hardens the clay.

That hardness would only grow as the week progressed.  The joy of Sunday gives way to an ominous sign on Monday.  The “wonderful things” He had done were now being met with the “woeful things” man was doing as Jesus overthrew the merchants and moneychangers just as He did three years earlier at the beginning of His ministry.  And Jesus’ actions only served to harden them further.  Mark and Luke tell us that the chief priests, scribes, and the leading men were only more determined to destroy Him.

Not all meditations of Jesus soften the heart.  On the contrary, some only serve to harden it further.  As I mentioned earlier, none who beheld this week would ever forget it and that is just as true of Jesus’ enemies as it is of His followers.  They, too, would be consumed with Christ in an entirely different manner and their meditations would forge a destiny.

What do your meditations on Christ reveal about your heart?  While we don’t see the miracles of healing that Jesus performed, we do see the Spirit of God working miraculously in the lives of people.  And when someone is truly born again, what response does it provoke in you?  Does it cause you to rejoice as you welcome a new believer into the family of God?  Or does it drive you away from them because they are different?  When the Word of God is preached, do you rejoice in its truth and power to change you or do you secretly shun it and look for teachers who will preach what you want to hear?  When it comes time to look for a church, do you seek one where Christ is faithfully proclaimed or do you seek the comfort of religious tradition?

 “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxieties; and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23-24).