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Good morning my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
This weekend perhaps draws more spiritual interest from people all around the world than any other days in the year. Why? Perhaps because this weekend God did the unreasonable, the unthinkable, the outrageous! God Himself, accomplished all that will ever be needed so you, me, and any person, can become spiritually whole! We can enter into a relationship with God because of what Jesus did! God will forgive our sins and God will adopt us into His family, and God will place His Holy Spirit to live permanently within us, and God will guarantee us eternity in heaven ONLY and ALL, because of what God accomplished through Jesus this weekend, in Jerusalem, 2 millennia ago.
But, as you perhaps know, all that God accomplished for us this weekend is ONLY applied to us, it only becomes real and life changing for us, IF and when, we admit to God our sinfulness, acknowledge we cannot do anything to save ourselves, and trust fully in Jesus and all He accomplished for us, this Passover/Easter weekend nearly 2000 years ago.
Around the world in recent weeks, countries have been keeping a daily tally… of death, death due to an invisible and deadly enemy called Coronavirus COVID-19. I have a question for us all. By the time you read this, the global, COVID-19 reported death toll may be near 100,000 people. Where are all those people now?
How many were spiritually and emotionally prepared to die? For how many was death a terrifying experience because they had no idea what was beyond their last breath? The events of this weekend, nearly 2000 years ago, and what Jesus accomplished then, CAN totally change both the death experience and answer the questions regarding what is beyond death, for anyone!
I’ve been at the death bedside of many followers of Jesus Christ who are not fearful, in fact they are worshiping with full confidence, that when they take their final breath here, BECAUSE of what Jesus accomplished Passover/Easter weekend, they will be immediately in heaven, with the resurrected Jesus and millions of people like them who have preceded them in death. My wife and I have that confidence, do you?
All four Gospels in the Bible, give us extensive detail of the events of the crucifixion of Jesus, which took place on that Friday of Passover weekend. You’ll find those accounts in Matthew 26:36-27:61; Mark 14:32-15:47; Luke 22:39-23:56 and John 18:1-19:42.
Perhaps you’ve heard of the 2004 film called “The Passion of the Christ”. It is, in my view, perhaps the most historically and Biblically accurate portrayal of what actually happened with Jesus in those dreadful hours. It is very graphic and violent. It will engage you in the experience perhaps like nothing else. It is in the Aramaic language, with English subtitles, adding to the authenticity. I’ve posted a YouTube link at the end of our study today.
The disciple John tells us when Jesus had finished praying (John 17), He and His disciples left Jerusalem, crossed the small Kidron valley and began walking up the Mount of Olives hillside, into a large olive garden called “The Garden of Gethsemane”. Some of this garden is still there today, with some olive trees actually dating back to the time of the time of Jesus! I’ve been there, maybe you have too. Jesus and His disciples had often stopped in this garden on their travels to and from Jerusalem, but this night would be different from all others.
Mathew tells us “Jesus said to them, ‘Sit here while I go over there and pray’. He took Peter, James and John along with Him…He said to them, ‘My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with Me. Going a little farther, He fell on His face to the ground and prayed ‘My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from Me. Yet not as I will, but as You will.” (Matt. 26:36-39) Do you hear the agony in Jesus’ words? The emotional and spiritual battle has intensified to an extreme. Satan is doing all he can to tempt Jesus to quit, to give up on the mission of redeeming the human race, for which God the Father had sent Jesus to earth.
I can imagine Satan whispering in Jesus’ ear… “they are only humans. Weak, unreliable, fickle human beings. They aren’t worth your time, your love and certainly not your sacrifice. They’ll disappoint you, they’ll turn their back on you, they are totally unworthy of you, Jesus.” And so Jesus wrestled, He prayed, He agonized. Dr. Luke, a physician, who wrote the Gospel of Luke, tells us Jesus’ anguish was so extreme “…His sweat was like drops of blood…” (Luke 22:44)
Sadly not once, but twice, Jesus returned to Peter, James and John sitting under an olive tree, and found them asleep! They had no idea the magnitude and intensity of the battle Jesus was fighting. He was in agony…alone. Yet He was determined to submit fully to the Father’s plan for the salvation of humanity and the eternal defeat of Satan.
Finally a third time Jesus returned from His agonizing prayer battle, to awaken His disciples by saying “Are you still sleeping? Look, the hour is near, the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us go! Here comes My betrayer.” (Matt. 26:45) Judas arrived at the garden, just then, with an mob armed with clubs and swords, sent by the religious leaders. Judas kissed Jesus. It wasn’t the normal mid-eastern greeting of friendship, it was a signal, identifying Jesus as the one the mob should grab.
Mayhem broke loose with a flurry of shouting, pushing and shoving. The disciples at first tried to defend their friend Jesus. Peter even had a knife which he swung at one man, cutting off his ear! Jesus shouted to Peter “Put your sword back in its place…do you think I cannot call on my Father and He will at once put at my disposal 12 legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen this way?” (Matt. 26:47-54)
Jesus restrained His miraculous power which He could easily have used to strike the mob blind, or even dead. Rather, Dr. Luke tells us Jesus healed that man’s severed ear! Jesus didn’t fight them, didn’t resist them, didn’t even ask for God’s help, instead He was resolute… determined to allow mankind’s wickedness and Satan’s hatred for God, to accomplish its ultimate purpose of totally rejecting God. Only there in that dark, desperate, hopeless place, could the full atonement price be paid for humanity’s redemption!
The mob tied Jesus, roughed Him up and dragged Him away. The disciples fled into the night, abandoning Jesus, all of them except two, Peter and one other, who followed from a distance, hiding in the shadows (Luke 22:54) It was a frightening experience. Jesus was taken first to the home of Annas. He had been the Jewish High Priest from ad6-15. The High Priest role was to be for life, but Rome deposed him and replaced Annas with his younger son-in-law Caiaphas, who held the High Priest role from ad15-37. Jesus was taken first to Annas out of respect that he was still considered by many to be the elder High Priest. However it was night, and nothing could be legally done by Jewish law until daylight. But the Jewish leaders were so determined to exterminate Jesus, law and order was set aside, they felt Jesus must be silenced as quickly as possible, Passover Sabbath would begin Friday at sundown.
John tells us Peter and the other disciple followed. “Because this disciple was known to the High Priest, he went with Jesus into the high priest’s courtyard, but Peter had to wait outside…” (John 18:15). In the few verses which follow Peter was questioned briefly by a girl at the doorway, and a second time as he was warming himself by a fire. Both times Peter denied he was associated with Jesus. Finally, “One of the high priest’s servants, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, challenged Peter, ‘Didn’t I see you with Him in the olive grove?’ Again Peter denied it, and at that moment a rooster began to crow.” (John 18:17-27)
Do you remember the conversation between Jesus and Peter, only a few hours ago in the upper room when Peter had boasted he would stand true and faithful to Jesus, even willing to die for Him, and Jesus had predicted he would deny Jesus three times before the rooster crowed? (John 13:38) Luke tells us Jesus overheard Peter, and turned to look straight at Peter in his denials. Peter rushed out into the night and wept bitterly (Luke 22:62). It was a defining moment in Peter’s life, one he would often remember as he years later courageously took the story of Jesus to the world and often faced great opposition. Historians tell us Peter died by crucifixion upside down, years later. He was defiant to the end, determined never again to deny his Lord Jesus.
Over the next hours of Thursday night and early Friday morning Jesus was dragged back and forth between Jewish religious leaders Annas and Caiaphas, and finally a gathering of the Jewish leadership council. Jesus was questioned, mocked, humiliated, spit on and beaten by the very Jewish leaders who should have recognized Jesus as their Messiah and drawn the Jewish world to worship and honor Him. Instead they rejected Him and sent Him shortly after dawn, to stand trial before the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate.
Meanwhile Judas, profoundly convicted in his soul that he had done a terrible thing betraying Jesus, with whom he had spent these last several months, went back to the Jewish leaders, returned the money they had paid him for his betrayal, then in desperate grief, Judas went and hanged himself. (Matt. 27:5)
Following his early morning interrogation of Jesus, Pilate could find no grounds for either imprisonment or execution. It was his habit every Passover to pardon a prisoner. Pilate ordered Jesus flogged by his Roman soldiers, and then presented the bloodied Jesus before the Jewish crowd, offering to release Jesus. But the vehement, angry shout came back to Pilate “Crucify Him”. Pilate answered “You take him and crucify him. As for me, I find no basis for a charge against Him.’ The Jews insisted, ‘we have a law that He must die because He claimed to be the Son of God.” (John 19:1-16) Startled, Pilate continued his questioning of Jesus, but in the end, washed his hands to symbolically absolve himself of responsibility, and handed Jesus over to the crowd to be crucified.
You know the story well, I’m sure my friends. By this time Jesus was near physical and emotional exhaustion. He had been brutalized all through the night. The heavy cross beam was placed on his shoulders and Jesus was forced to carry His cross through the streets of Jerusalem, to the hill called Golgotha, the place of execution outside the city walls. Collapsing several times, finally that cross beam was taken off Jesus and placed on a man standing in the crowd, named Simon from Cyrene, who carried it the rest of the way to Golgotha. Pause here a moment friends. Put yourself in Simon’s sandals. Feel that heavy beam on your shoulders, some of Jesus’ blood on that beam is now on you. Jesus stumbles along next to you as you struggle under the weight of that heavy cross beam. A Roman whip cracks across your back to keep you moving, as the crowd jeers and presses in around you. It’s barbaric, inhumane, insane.
Once atop Golgotha Jesus is thrust to the ground, his clothes ripped off his body, with the exception of maybe a small loin cloth. Crucifixion was both horrible physical torture and profound emotional humiliation. It normally was done along a busy roadside and passers by were urged to jeer and even through stones at those on the crosses. Two other men, convicted criminals, were executed that same day, one on either side of Jesus. This method of death may be one of the most horrific ever devised by mankind.
Only one disciple John, stood near the cross with Mary, Jesus’ mother, and a few others watching this horrific scene. Seven times and with great, painful effort, Jesus spoke words while hanging on the cross. One day next week we’ll spend some time with John as he reflects on those words. Some were spoken directly to him and changed his life!
Jesus hung on that cross about 6 hours. For three of those hours, a great darkness came over the land. (Matt. 27:45) Was it a solar eclipse? Was it thick cloud cover? Whatever it was, God brought a darkness that was both fearful and symbolic. Darkness in the daytime is fearful! This darkness symbolized the extinguishing of the light…Jesus, the light of the world. It gave the people of Jerusalem just a taste of how dark and empty life would be for them, in their rejection of Jesus, their refusal to see God’s offer of the hope and help available to them in Jesus His Son, Immanuel.
Finally Matthew tells us “And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, He gave us His spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split. The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life…when the centurion and those with them who were guarding Jesus saw all that had happened, they were terrified and exclaimed, ‘Surely He was the Son of God.” (Matt. 27:50-54)
Jesus was dead. He had given His life as a sacrifice for the defeat of the wickedness in every person. He had paid the full ransom price, so God could now extend forgiveness to any who would repent and trust Jesus’s payment to be payment in full for their sin.
Two men came forward, having asked Pilate permission to remove Jesus’ body from the cross and bury it. Both were Jewish religious leaders, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. We remember John told us about Nicodemus, the leader who came at night to talk with Jesus, when He was just beginning His ministry, in John 3. These two men carefully but quickly wrapped and placed Jesus badly torn body in Joseph’s tomb in a nearby garden. It was late afternoon. Sunset and the start of Passover Sabbath was only moments away.
Walk with John, Mary and others from that tomb to the place where they’d stay the night in overcrowded Passover Jerusalem. Do you feel their deep pain, their agony? Can you imagine the questions which fill their minds? While exhausted, sleep will not come easily tonight. Only darkness… a deep, deep darkness of the soul. What could the future possibly hold after this horrible day?
While you and I know Easter Sunday is day after tomorrow… they didn’t know that. So I’d like to leave us today considering the profound hopelessness that you and I, and our world would be living in, if the story of Jesus ended here.
I will have a special “Dark Saturday” edition of “Walking with Jesus” tomorrow for you. Here is that link for “The Passion of the Christ”. Please remember it is very graphic.
Oh God, we are so grateful Your story of Jesus does not end here. Your purpose for sending Jesus to earth was not fully accomplished with Crucifixion Friday. Resurrection Sunday is required for there to be any hope for any of us. Thank you God that you have not left us in despair with a dead Jesus!
Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Click to read today’s chapter: Matthew 26; Mark 14; Mark 15; Luke 22; Luke 23; John 18. (At the top you can choose a different translation.)
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“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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