A Passion Week Challenge

Today is Palm Sunday, the beginning of Passion Week, and thus begins the annual observances of palm branches at church, planning the big family get-together next week, new dresses for little girls, eggs and bunnies, getting off early on Friday and reaching the finish line of Lent.

At least that’s how it will be for millions around the world.  Sadly, the events of Passion Week will be little more than a motif for time with loved ones.  And lost in it all will be the tragedy, triumph and marvel of the greatest week in history.

While holidays like Christmas and Easter are supposed to focus on the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus, the reality is that these things should be a feast of meditation for the believer all throughout the year.  The truths surrounding the life of Jesus are wonders and mysteries which should never cease to captivate our minds and more importantly…our hearts.

Consider Mary, for example.  Scripture shows her to be a woman of deep thought and emotion as revealed in a passage like Luke 2:19 where she “treasured all these things…in her heart” after the shepherds visited Jesus on the night of His birth.  Twelve years later in verse 51 she was still doing the same, thus revealing her to be woman of constant meditation.  And more than twenty years later she is still doing the same as she waits for the day of Pentecost in Acts 1:14.

The same is true of Peter and the remaining ten disciples who walked with Jesus.  Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would “bring to your remembrance all that I said to you” in John 14:26.  Such remembrance would be deep, constant and the groundwork for future revelation which Jesus promised in 16:12-15.

The point I wish to make is this—the seasonal recollection of events would never satisfy a heart like Mary’s or the eleven or any of the other 120 disciples in the upper room.  They had no concept of treating these events as mere facts, facts so routine to many to the point of boredom.

What is your meditation of Christ?  Does it go beyond His birth and death?  Have you considered the importance of His whole life, the entire time He walked upon this earth?  One aspect of this significance was driven home to me a few weeks ago at church when we sang, "What Wondrous Love Is This?"  One of the choice stanzas in that hymn is "When I was sinking down beneath God's righteous frown, Christ laid aside His crown for my soul."

Think about the truth of the incarnation as revealed in Galatians 4:4-5, "But when the fullness of time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law..."

As we sang that stanza, I thought of this verse and was reminded of a precious truth God taught me years ago.  When a man is drowning and begins to go under, the only way to save him is to fully immerse yourself in the very water that threatens to kill him.  If you don’t, he will die.

Along the same lines did you ever stop to consider this—when God gave the Law to Moses at Sinai, He did so knowing He would be the only One who would keep it?  None of us could keep the Law.  Our sin is revealed by it and all of us are condemned as a result according to Romans 3:19-20.    Therefore if God is to save us, He must fully immerse Himself in the very Law that threatens to kill us.

And that is exactly what He did in the incarnation.  Jesus’ perfect, sinless life qualified Him to save us and thus the Lawgiver became the Lawkeeper to save the lawbreakers.

I ask again, what is your meditation of Christ?  Is it regular or occasional?  Does it deepen your heart or salve your conscience?  Does it skim the surface or plumb the depths?  Does it lead you to worship or placate your mind?

Jesus Himself asks you this question, “What do you think about the Christ…?” (Matthew 22:42).  May the facts of this week become the meditation of your heart.