A Heart Condition

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).