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Good morning my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
Around the world today is known as “Good Friday”, one of the most important days in human history, do you know why? On this day we commemorate that Jesus Christ, God the Son, became our Redeemer, our Deliverer, our Savior as HE paid the full sin-atonement price for all humanity with His death on the cross as God the Father poured out His justice wrath for our sin upon His Son on that cross. Did you know that? But can you explain how the death of one man, 2000 years ago, paid for all the sins of all humanity for all time?
I left you yesterday in Jerusalem about 2000 years ago, walking out of an ‘upper room’ with Jesus and His disciples after their Passover meal. It had been an unforgettable evening, as John uses 5 chapters to describe it! (John 13-17) Judas had rushed out of the room after being identified by Jesus as the traitor disciple who would betray Jesus.
As Peter walked along with the disciples that night through the winding streets of Jerusalem, across the Kidron Valley and into the Garden of Gethsemane, his heart was very heavy. Jesus had predicted Peter would deny Jesus three times before daylight tomorrow morning! (Matt. 26:31-35) Peter knew he was brash, argumentative, overly self-confident, too often way too spontaneous without thinking, but Peter could not imagine denying Jesus, but since Jesus had predicted it, Peter was doing some deep self-reflection. Jesus was never wrong.
Have you ever done some really deep self-assessment, looking into the shadowy recess of your soul, to discover the roots of your anger or lust or deceitfulness or bitterness or any other attitude or behavior which profanes the reputation of Jesus?
Matthew gives us the most detailed description of what took place in the Garden of Gethsemane that night, as Jesus told His disciples to pray, while He went deeper into the garden for some personal time with His Father. Jesus had done this before, remember? (Mark 1:35-38; Matt. 14:22,23; Luke 6:12-16) This time Jesus invited Peter, James and John to come with Him further into the garden for prayer. Then He left them with instructions and this appeal: “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with Me.” (Matt. 26:37,38)
Now, my friends, considering all they’ve experienced together the past few weeks, and especially the upper room hours, what would you have done if you were there with Peter, James and John and heard Jesus, probably in agony, ask that of you?
Matthew tells us Jesus went further into the garden and agonized ALONE in prayer with God the Father while these three fell asleep! What was Jesus in agony about? The next 18 hours would be horrific beyond our ability to understand. Why? Consider this:
* Only Jesus could see planet earth and the human race from God’s eternal perspective... from Genesis 1 Creation all the way to Revelation 21 and re-creation of a new heaven and new earth!
In that garden, I believe Jesus agonized about what He saw as He reviewed that ugly story of the mess humanity has made of God’s perfect creation as in every generation, we have rejected God and invited evil to reign in this world!
* Only Jesus could see Lucifer’s rebellion in heaven and the establishment of a ‘dark kingdom’ so full of evil, intent on opposing God and destroying God’s good plans for humanity.
I believe Jesus grieved at how easily the vast majority of humanity has embraced the vicious ploys of Satan wrapped in attractive enticements. Jesus fully understood the horrific evil battle which was raging at that hour for the soul of all humanity!
* Only Jesus could see what was going to happen to Him in the next hours and the full rejection of Holy God and God the Son by Jewish religious leaders and Roman politicians and soldiers.
Jesus knew even the disciples would run in fear, abandoning Him to the delirious mob. (Matt. 26:56)
* Only Jesus could see down the corridor of time, all the way to 2025 and beyond. Jesus could see what humanity would do with this Passover/Easter weekend in every generation.
How many people would celebrate the truth of what Jesus accomplished? But how many more would ignore it turning instead to Easter eggs and baskets of candy or Easter rabbits and other meaningless things.
Do you find it fascinating that Jesus began His early mission battling Satan during His time of fasting and prayer with the Father following His baptism and Holy Spirit anointing? And now in the garden of Gethsemane, in the hour of prayer between the upper room and the cross, Jesus agonized, even with drops of blood piercing through His brow as He prayed. Satan was again attacking, tempting Jesus to do as he had done, rebel against God the Father’s perfect Plan. Jesus prayed for you and me and our world.
He prayed that He would be strong enough to withstand what He knew awaited Him. And He experienced the outrageous, radical love of God the Father which assured God the Son that there was no other way. Redemption of humanity required the agony, death and justice wrath of God poured out by the Father upon His Holy Son. Do we understand the agony of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane and that Jesus was agonizing over you and me, our families, our cities, our nations, our human race? Do we understand Satan was there, powerfully working trying to convince Jesus to abandon God’s Redemption Plan and to see humanity was unfit, unworthy of God’s love or Jesus’ self-sacrifice!
While the disciples dozed, Jesus awakened them and informed them His time had come, Judas the betrayer had arrived with an armed mob to forcefully take Jesus into the hellish journey of the next several hours culminating with His crucifixion. Stunned Peter reached for his knife, swung it wildly and cut off a man’s ear. Amazingly Jesus lifted the severed ear from the ground and miraculously healed it back onto the man’s head (Luke 22:50,51) even though that man was one of those who came to arrest Jesus.
Jesus declared His Father could send 12 legions of angels to defend His Son, but He wouldn’t, for this all needed to happen if the human race was to be rescued from our bondage and self-destruction. (Matt. 26:52-56)
And so, Jesus was roughly bound and dragged off from that peaceful prayer garden to a long night of atrocities, injustice and evil. Horrible evil, as God the Son, the Creator of our universe and humanity, was brutalized in the hatred of men who had succumbed and embraced the strong influence of their wicked selfishness and pride while they rejected God and His offer of hope.
In the morning, as you know, the Jewish religious leaders sought the help of the government leaders, Governor Pilate in particular, and Jesus was sentenced to death by crucifixion. You’ve seen the movies, read the books and probably imagined in great detail what took place over those hours as finally Jesus, emaciated from the beatings, was forced to carry His cross to His execution. A man was arbitrarily grabbed out of the crowd to carry Jesus’ cross when Jesus fell and simply did not have sufficient strength to stand up under the weight of that cross beam. (Matt. 27:32)
At some point in all this, John the disciple and best friend of Jesus, had slipped away to find Mary, Jesus’ mother, perhaps also staying in Bethany at Mary, Martha and Lazarus’ home. I believe John returned with her and they walked together in the crowd, following Jesus to Golgotha. Can we imagine what they both felt as they watched Jesus nailed to that cross and the cross raised up, for John tells us he only, of all the disciples, stood there with Mary and Mary Magdalene, watching Jesus suffer and die. (John 19:25-27)
I leave you today standing at the cross with John, Mary and a few others. What was Jesus thinking, feeling and saying to His Father? How could so many of our world, today and through all history, ignore this day, be indifferent about this day, reject what Jesus accomplished for the redemption of all of us on this horrible day? What is our response to Jesus today? Here’s a worship song to help us honor Jesus today…
Today’s Scripture: Matt. 26, 27.
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Matthew 26
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Matthew 27
Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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