Holy Week 3

3:15 PM

The timeline of Holy Week is fuzzy towards the middle.  Exactly when Jesus and his disciples ate the Last Supper is unknown.  Wednesday, not Thursday, is the most probable day. 

Anyway, this week Joy and I are celebrating the Lord's supper both days.  Tonight we will attend a Seder  with the Lutherans and tomorrow we will be celebrating a joint service with the local ARP churches   Should be interesting.

I'm very excited about tomorrow night, especially, since I'm preaching. I've felt led to do something I haven't done in years--to read John 13-16,  the last speech Jesus gave to his disciples before He was arrested.

If you're preparing to celebrate tonight or tomorrow, I highly recommend reading it.  It's very moving, especially when you put it in the proper historical context.  After supper,  Jesus only had a couple of hours to get his last message into the heads of the disciples, who had no clue what was about to happen. 

Jesus really puts the Gospels in perspective for us.  He starts off (surprisingly enough) by washing his disciples' feet. This was a dirty job that not even the lowest household slaves wanted to do, but He volunteered.  He was making the point that no act of kindness and service should be beneath a leader who loves his people.  "Dignity of office" was never in Jesus' vocabulary.  If they wanted to serve, they had to be servants.  Then, after Judas left,  Jesus really got down to business.

He informed them that He was going away, and they couldn't follow.  He'd come again, but in the meantime, they should love each other like He loved each of them.

Peter, stout-hearted and thick-headed as always, suddenly woke up and said,  "Where are you going?"

Jesus  told him he could not come now, but would later.  Peter insisted,  blurting out,  "I'd lay down my life for you. "

That was when Jesus told the stunned fisherman that he would deny Him three times that very night, before the rooster crowed.

I cannot imagine the emotions that must have gone through Jesus at that time--the dread of pain,  the excitement of being back with His Father,  the disappointment at the betrayal of friends,  the joy of their company.  He must have felt all this,  along with that overwhelming desire to get the job done,  defeat the Devil and free the hearts of people all over  the world forever. No one was ever executed more horribly or more willingly as Jesus, and no one ever will be. 

As he prepared inwardly for His great sacrifice,  He still thought first about his disciples.  "Don't be troubled," he said.  "Believe in me. My Father's house has many rooms.  One of them will be for you."  Then he says again that He is going.

Thomas,  ever the practical one,  says "How can we go?  We don't know  the way."

"I am the way," said Jesus.  Just trust Him,  and you will get there.

Then Jesus went deeper--way deeper.  He explained to them that He and the Father God are one and the same.  God is in him, and with them.  When He went away,  He would send his Spirit to them so that God would be in them, too. Then He and they and the Spirit will all be united together in God.

When we think  about Holy Week,  we often see the events  of Christ's death and resurrection as being about the forgiveness of sin.  So it is, but they are about more than that.  Forgiveness is just the door that opens up to reveal a whole new life with God.  On the other side of that door is unity with Him. We are forgiven in order that we can share God's life with Him 

That's why I've never liked crucifixes.  Seeing Jesus still on the cross seems to me is like looking at the door, not the house.  We have to see the goal behind it--oneness with Him.

What a weird, expurgated version of Christianity we espouse when we see it merely as getting our sins forgiven and getting a ticket to heaven, where we will sit on clouds with harps and chat with our ancestors,  while God, like the mayor downtown, oversees all this bliss, but doesn't come by to see us much.  No, the picture Jesus paints is a place where you and I will be caught up in the glory of God, united in joy and wonder,  a "glory" extending beyond tine and space into this life, catching us up in joy,  in a communion with Him forever. 

I've never seen heaven. But I've seen some amazing things.  I've seen a basketball player sink a basket from a mid-court shot just before the buzzer.  I've felt the space shuttle shake my house as it roared into space. I've seen old people die and new people born. These are sights that catch me up in the moment, filling me with wonder and amazement.  I've lost myself willingly in such moments.  Imagine an eternity of that kind of wonder, as God almighty enters into us, and we into Him. 

Christ on the Cross, Christ in communion doesn't move me until I really enter into the event, savoring the love involved, and realizing the unmitigated wonder of it.  That is what I want for the rest of this week,  to be in Christ, and to have Christ in me.