Monday, March 21, 2016
“This is My Commandment, that you love one another just as I
have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his
life for his friends; you are my friends, if you do what I command you”. (John 15:12-14).
Hey Gang: Years ago I made a tragic
mistake. I prayed a prayer that I was not prepared to accept the
consequences of that prayer. It was about this time of the year and,
during my devotion time, I was preparing what I prayed that God would give me a
very special message for the coming Easter Chapel Service. Simply, (I learned
very rapidly that it was not so simply), I prayed God would teach me about the
agony of the cross. And that He did! I am not one to measure and
weigh one week’s woes against another, but as I recall, I do believe it was the
toughest week of my life ,and the pain still lingers.
Part of my devotions, the other
morning, centered on the Palm Sunday entry of Jesus into Jerusalem; a Scripture
that I have read several times every year for the past fifty years - but there
was something different that dug deep into my heart and mind. I did not
ask the Lord to teach me about the agony that followed his triumphal entry – I
had learned that lesson well.
As a reread the account of that day in
the life of the Lord, I wondered what was going through Jesus’ mind when he
rose from sleep that morning. He had told his disciples that He would
soon be glorified, which I sense they did not have a clue what He meant.
He was man and He was God. We sometimes forget that He was man- and felt
the same pain, the same anxieties and I suspect even some of the same fears
that I experience.
Did He not come to walk in our sandals
and learn the trials that we, His creation, go through? I once made a
comment, in one of my speaking excursions, that Jesus probably had acne as a
teen and perhaps was even constipated one or more times. That was not
well received by some of those salt-colored heads in the back pew. But
Isaiah did say, “Surely our griefs He Himself bore and our sorrows He
carried” (Isaah53:4).
It was Passover time and the streets
were packed with more than two million people jamming the narrow streets of
Jerusalem. The city was a buzz- the man who raised Lazarus from the dead
was on His way to the city. I believe there was great anticipation as
word began to circulate that Jesus, the one who had the power to heal the sick
and raise the dead, was nearing the city.
Within he masses there were three
very distinct groups of people: those who knew Him intimately and believed that
He was truly the Son of God, the ever present curiosity seekers who were always
in the market for something unusual, and the religious leaders who feared Him
and sought a way to remove this thorn from their side.
We remember the stinging words of
Caiaphas when he said, “It was expedient for one man to die on behalf
of the people”. (John 1:14). The die had been cast, Jesus must die to
protect their way of life.
We are told that those who knew Him
intimately “…spread their coats in the road, and other spread leafy
branches which they had cut from the fields” and those who went in front and
those who followed were shouting: “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name
of the Lord. Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David: Hosanna
in the Highest” (Mark 11: 8-10).
I wond red how He felt as He
approached the city and saw the great multitudes of people lining the streets
to get a better look at this “raiser of the dead”. I have heard many
renditions of this, which is called the Triumphal Entry, but how did the ‘man’
in this God-man feel? Was He filled with anxiety?
He knew what awaited Him. He knew soon He would not leave this city again
on foot. He knew the Roman soldiers knew their craft well and could strip the
skin off the backs of the convicted clear down to the bone. He knew that
the soldiers knew how to drive the spikes into the hands and leg with such
precision as to cause the greatest pain, but also do it such a way that death
came slowly and pain that is indescribable to man lingered.
As I tried to put myself in His place,
sitting here in the plushness of my home where I have been so abundantly
blessed, I just could not go deep enough into my soul to truly
understand. How could the God, who created the perfect universe and all that
it contains- including me, agree in that meeting- before-time began
to be my sacrifice and free me from the bondage of sin. I could think of
nothing- because there was nothing. He reached out and said, “Here is
gift from the Father, don’t walk or jog but run as fast as you can to His arms
and His forgiveness and His salvation.”
I thought of that night when Jesus and
His disciples had finished the ‘last supper’ together and gone to the place
where Jesus loved to pray. I remember the first day that I stood in the
midst of the huge olive trees that now make up the garden. And I thought
of the story when the King of Aram sent a great army of horses and chariots to
capture Elisha. Elisha’s servant was in great fear when he saw that
the city was surrounded and “…cried out to Elisha, what shall we
do?”
“Do not fear, for those who are with
us are more than those who are with them. Then Elisha prayed and said, “O
Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.” And the Lord opened the
servant’s eyes and he saw; and behold the mountain was full of horses and
chariots of fire all around Elisha”. (2 Kings 6:16-17).
I believe that is a perfect picture of
what transpired that night at the Garden of Gethsemane. I recalled the
times I stood on the Mount of Olives and looked across that vast expanse
surrounded by the Kidron and Gehenna Valleys, the Gate Beautiful, in the Old City Wall, and The Garden of
Gethsemane. I visualized it filled with those same horses and chariots, all in
battle dress with swords in hand waiting for their orders to rescue the Lord of
Glory from the hands of the evil ones.
There was a precedent for that way
back in the life of Abraham and Isaac. God tested Abraham, “He
said, “Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the
land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains
of which I will tell you. So, Abraham rose early in the morning and
saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son;
and he split wood and for the brunt offering, and arose and went to the place
of which God had told him…
Where is the lamb for the burnt
offering? God will provide! Abraham stretched out his hand and took
the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from
heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” Do nothing to him for now I know that you
fear God” (Gen 22:1-22).
Just as Abraham was about to thrust
the knife in His only son’s heart, the Lord said Abraham, put down your knife,
I see the sincerity of your heart. The angels knew that story. They were
probably there and prepared on this fateful night to stop Caiaphas and his
cohorts from fulfilling their prophecy that it was more expedient for Jesus to
die than to have their world turned upside down.
It was here that Jesus, the man, cried
out to “Abba Father, All things are
possible for You, remove this cup from Me”. And
it was there that the battle of the of cross was won- when God’s Begotten Son
cried out, “Yet, not what I will, but
what You will” (Mark 14:35-36). And our
salvation was secured for all eternity. The Garden of Gethsemane that
night was filled with God’s angel warriors in full battle gear with swords in
hand ready to rescue God’s Son but - without the shedding of blood
there is no atonement!
My heart is filled with sadness this
day because of the part that I paid to place my Lord Jesus, God’s Son, who came
into the world as God-man to prepare a way for me to be freed from the bondage
of sin. When He entered the city that day, some, a small
contingent, cried out Hosanna, Hosanna to the King of Kings -but soon the mob,
who choose to go their own way and reject God’s love, cried out, “Crucify
Him, Crucify Him.”
If the news were to report that Jesus,
the Christ, the Son of Jehovah, was coming to your street today, would you be
in the Hosanna shouters crowd or would you be with the mob shouting “Crucify
Him”?
Or perhaps you would be standing in
the middle of the street not sure what direction you need to go.
esus said, “I am the way, I am the truth. I am the life, there is
no other way to the Father except my Me” (John 14:6). The price for redemption was paid
in full on that hill called Calvary, ““For God so loved you and me, that He gave His only
begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal
life” (John 3:16).
“Greater love his no one than this, that one lay down his
life for his friends, you are my friends if you do what I command you”. I
died for you, will you die for Me? Signed Jesus! (John
15:13).
Blessing,
Gramps
