Easter08

A glorious morning!
Since we are two weeks from Easter, I thought that I would like to share some collected thoughts revolving around the Stations of the Cross. I trust that these can aid your worship each day to Resurrection Sunday!

Have a great day!
PD

Luke 23:50-54; Mark 16:1-4

After Jesus died, His body was placed in a tomb. This was better treatment than many crucified people would have received. Their bodies were often discarded by Roman soldiers and left exposed, unless they had families or friends nearby to care for them. The body of Jesus was fortunate enough to receive unusual attention from a man named Joseph, who was both a member of the Sanhedrin and a follower of Jesus. He made sure the body of his Master was appropriately buried, so that, later, the bones of Jesus could be finally interred in an ossuary (a special box for bones). Little did Joseph know that God had other plans for the body of Jesus.
In most human societies appropriate burial of dead bodies is a sacred tradition. It matters profoundly that we ensure the proper resting place
for those who have died. Yet, after burials happen, we don't generally mention them specifically.
It is significant to note that all four biblical Gospels describe the burial of Jesus and the help of Joseph of Arimathea. Also, the earliest summary of the Christian message also contained explicit reference to Jesus' burial. Paul, writing to Christians in Corinth about twenty years after Jesus' death, summarized the basic Christian good news in this way:
For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures,
and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the
twelve. (1 Corinthians 15:3-5)
Our thought this morning concerns what does "and that he was buried" add to the essential Christian message? Granted, it prepares the way for
the affirmation of the resurrection. To say that Jesus died and was raised without mentioning His burial could lead to a misunderstanding of the story. Someone could think that Jesus was immediately brought back to life from the cross.
But, more important by far, the mention of the burial of Jesus makes it absolutely clear that Jesus really died on the cross. He didn't just
appear to die, as was once proposed by Hugh Schoenfield in his bestselling book, The Passover Plot.
Whatever else can be known about Jesus, all the evidence, from both biblical and extra-biblical sources, points to the simple fact that He really died upon the cross. When the earliest Christians proclaimed the burial of Jesus, they were saying, in effect, that He really, really died.
The death of Jesus brings about some difficult questions… How could the One who was the Way, the Truth, and the Life actually die? How could the Author of Life lose His own life?
I don't think I can really answer these questions. I've been a Christian for a long time and they still call me to wonder and worship.
Worship with these words today. They are from the hymn, "And Can It Be That I Should Gain?"

And can it be that I should gain
An interest in the Savior's blood?
Died He for me, who caused His pain--
For me, who Him to death pursued?
Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?

'Tis mystery all: th'Immortal dies:
Who can explore His strange design?
In vain the firstborn seraph tries
To sound the depths of love divine.
'Tis mercy all! Let earth adore,
Let angel minds inquire no more.
'Tis mercy all! Let earth adore;
Let angel minds inquire no more.

He left His Father's throne above
So free, so infinite His grace--
Emptied Himself of all but love,
And bled for Adam's helpless race:
'Tis mercy all, immense and free,
For O my God, it found out me!
'Tis mercy all, immense and free,
For O my God, it found out me!

Check the church hymnal for additional verses.

March 22nd The Thirteenth Station: Jesus Dies on the Cross

Luke 23:44-47
At first glance, Luke's version of the centurion's response to Jesus' death seems like a glaring understatement. "Certainly this man was innocent," rightly identifies Jesus' lack of guilt. It makes clear once again the fact that He didn't deserve to be crucified for sedition against Rome. He was no ordinary revolutionary, no guerrilla warrior, no terrorist. So, yes, "this man was innocent." But couldn't Luke have done better than this in His telling of the story? Mark's version seems so much stronger: "Truly this man was God's Son!"
We can't be sure why Luke fashioned the narrative of Jesus' death as he did. But we can understand that "Certainly this man was innocent" carried more weight with Luke than it might seem. Some translations, including the classic King James, have, "Certainly this was a righteous man" (23:47). This is a literal translation of the Greek to describe Jesus. The word can mean innocent, but it is the usual word for "righteous," and the base of such words as "righteousness, justice, justification" and "justify”. From the lips of the centurion comes something far more than a recognition of Jesus' innocence. It's an ironic confession of His character as the righteous one, indeed, The Righteous One.
That Jesus was The Righteous One identifies Him with the Suffering Servant from Isaiah 53. In this classic passage we read: 3 He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account. 4 Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. 5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. . . .11 Out of his anguish he shall see light; he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge. The righteous one [ho dikaios], my servant, shall make many righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. 12 Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he poured out himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the
transgressors. Isaiah 53:4-6, 11-12
Because Jesus was righteous, because He was innocent, not just of crimes that deserved crucifixion, but of all wrongdoing, He was able to make
many righteous by bearing the sin of others. He became the spotless sacrifice for all people.
In Corinthians, Paul explains in theological language as to the importance of Jesus' death: "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21). Simply put, God made Christ to be sin in that He became an offering for sin, taking our place in receiving the death that sin begets. Christ was able to do this because He was The Righteous One.
In exchange, we receive His own righteousness, the very righteousness of God. Through Christ, we are brought back into right relationship with
the living God and begin the process of being made fully right, just like Jesus.
So the apparently simple expression of the centurion, "Certainly thi s man was innocent" turns out to mean much more than it suggests on the surface.
Jesus was not just innocent, but righteous. And He was not just any old righteous person, but The Righteous One who came to fulfill the role of the Suffering Servant. Through His righteous life, and through His sacrificial death, we receive the gift of His own righteousness. What a wonder!
We close today with the wonderful poetry of the classic hymn, "The Solid Rock," by Edward Mote:

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand,
All other ground is sinking sand.

When darkness seems to hide his face,
I rest on his unchanging grace;
In ev’ry high and stormy gale,
My anchor holds within the veil.
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand,
All other ground is sinking sand.

His oath, his covenant, his blood
Support me in the whelming flood;
When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my hope and stay.
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand,
All other ground is sinking sand.

When he shall come with trumpet sound,
Oh, may I then in him be found;
Dressed in his righteousness alone,
Faultless to stand before the throne.
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand,
All other ground is sinking sand.

March 22nd The Twelfth Station: Jesus on the Cross, His Mother, and His Disciple

John 19:25-27
Though most of the men who followed Jesus deserted him at the cross, His female followers remained to observe his death. All four gospels mention this striking fact (Matt 27:55-56; Mark 15:40-41; Luke 23:49; John 19:25). John alone specifies that Mary the mother of Jesus was among the women who remained near him until the end.
In the Gospel of John, Mary was standing next to “the disciple whom [Jesus] loved,” believed traditionally to be John, one of Jesus’ closest disciples and the source of the gospel that bears his name. Observing these two, Jesus said to His mother, “Woman, here is your son,” and to the beloved disciple, “Here is your mother” (19:26-27). The writer of the gospel adds, “And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home” (19:27). The basic meaning of Jesus’ statement is clear. He was entrusting care of His mother to one of His most intimate friends and followers. He was making sure that she would be loved and cared for after Jesus’ death. Jesus knew He could trust His beloved follower with an extremely important responsibility. (We don’t know much about the relationship of Jesus and His natural siblings at this point. Earlier in his ministry they seemed to have been less than fully supportive of His ministry [see Mark 3:21]. Later, Jesus’ brother James became one of the main leaders of the Christian church.)
Commentators throughout the ages have rightly noticed Jesus’ attention to the needs of others, in this case His mother, even in His hour of excruciating suffering. This is a fine observation and surely fits with everything else we know about Jesus.
Have you ever been struck by the thought of what Jesus’ mother must have experienced as she watched her son being crucified? I can only begin to
imagine her pain. Her anguish over her son was obvious. No mother should ever have to see her son suffer like this.
Yet Mary might have understood that the death of her son was part of God’s mysterious plan. The gospels don’t tell us too much about her experience or faith at this time. She surely knew from the very beginning that Jesus was extraordinary and that God had something very special in store for Him. And there were moments when she probably understood that Jesus’ destiny would not be an easy one, for Him or for her. For example, in Luke 2 when Simeon praised God upon seeing the baby Jesus, he delivered a chilling prophecy to Mary, “This child is destined for the falling and rising of many in Israel . . . and a sword will pierce your own soul too” (2:34-35).
Mel Gibson’s portrayal of Mary in The Passion of the Christ was extremely moving, partly because he didn’t overplay his hand in depicting Mary’s grief. Though her loving sorrow for her son is obvious, Mary doesn’t weep and wail and carry on. She seems to know that something like this was
coming, that Jesus is doing that for which He was born. As a mother, she wants to run to Him, and at one point she is able to do so. But she also understands that she cannot rescue Jesus from His fate and that, in a profound sense, she must not even if she could. Jesus has chosen to lay down His life of His own accord, believing that this is the cup His Heavenly Father has given Him to drink (John 10:18; Mark 14:32-42). Mary’s
strength and reserve seems to respect what her son and, indeed, what His Heavenly Father, have chosen.
As you reflect upon the meaning of Christ’s death this day, Mary’s presence at the cross reminds us of the deeply human drama that is occurring, while it also points beyond to the majesty and mystery of God’s plan for salvation.

March 21st – The Eleventh Station: Jesus Promises His Kingdom to the Good
Thief

Luke 23:39-43

Three men were being crucified, suffering excruciating pain, literally.
(The word "excruciate" comes from the Latin cruciare, "to crucify.")
One man joins in taunting Jesus, sarcastically calling out for salvation
he knows Jesus can't deliver. The other, sensing something that he has
never felt before, defends Jesus as an innocent victim. Then, in
desperate hope, he cries out: "Jesus, remember me when you come into
your kingdom." In response Jesus says a most astounding thing, a most
encouraging thing, a most curious thing: "Truly I tell you, today you
will be with me in Paradise."
It's easy to imagine the jeers of the crowds at this point as they made
fun of Jesus' silly wishful thinking. After all, He'd only been on the
cross for an hour or two. Most crucifixions lasted several days before
the victim finally died from exhaustion, exposure, loss of blood, and
suffocation. Today in Paradise? What a joke! All Jesus and the stooge
beside him will experience today is ultimate pain and ultimate disgrace.
If they are lucky, perhaps tomorrow they might die. And even then,
Paradise? Hardly!
The word "Paradise" comes from a Persian word meaning "garden." It was
used to describe a place of beauty, peace, and joy. In Jewish thought,
Paradise represented the Garden of Eden, and could stand for the joys of
heaven. Paradise was just about as far as one could get from crucifixion.
Yet, in spite of the apparent absurdity of it, and in spite of the
spiteful laughter of the crowd, Jesus promises that the thief will join
Him in Paradise even this very day.
Luke 23:39-43 has often perplexed Christians who believe that salvation
comes only by explicitly confessing Jesus as Savior and Lord. "Jesus,
remember me when you come into your kingdom" hardly fits the bill here.
Whatever the desperate thief believed about Jesus, it's unlikely that he
prayed the sinner's prayer while on his cross. And we have no reason to
believe that Jesus straightened out the thief's theology before offering
the promise of Paradise. No, what we have in the text of Luke is a cry
of minimal faith and maximal desperation. And what we have from the
mouth of Jesus is a response of extraordinary mercy.
It would be unwise to build a whole theology of salvation on the basis of
this single passage from Luke. And it would be unwise to build a theology
of salvation without taking seriously this passage. Whatever else, it
reminds us that God is "rich in mercy" (Eph 2:4). God saves us, not
because we earn it, not because we deserve it, not because we say the
right words and pray the right prayers, and not even because we get our
theology right, but because God is full of mercy, mercy revealed and
poured out through Jesus Christ, mercy that says to a thief: "Today you
will be with me in Paradise."
If this crucified criminal could have hope, then perhaps you and I can as
well. We hope, not in our goodness, not in our good intentions, but in the
matchless mercy of God. As I reflect on Jesus' response to the thief, I'm
reminded of a marvelous hymn by Frederick William Faber, "There's a
Wideness in God's Mercy." this hymn is actually an excerpt from a longer
piece written by Faber.

Souls of men, why will ye scatter,
like a crowd of frightened sheep?
Foolish hearts, why will ye wander
from a love so true and deep?
Was there ever kindest shepherd
half so gentle, half so sweet,
as the Savior who would have us
come and gather round his feet?

There's a wideness in God's mercy,
like the wideness of the sea;
there's a kindness in his justice,
which is more than liberty.
There is no place where earth's sorrows
are more felt than up in heaven;
there is no place where earth's failings
have such kindly judgment given.

There is welcome for the sinner,
and more graces for the good;
there is mercy with the Savior;
there is healing in his blood.
There is plentiful redemption
in the blood that has been shed;
there is joy for all the members
in the sorrows of the Head.

For the love of God is broader
than the measure of man's mind.
and the heart of the Eternal
is most wonderfully kind.
But we make his love too narrow
by false limits of our own;
and we magnify its strictness
with a zeal he will not own.

Pining souls, come nearer Jesus,
and O come not doubting thus,
but with faith that trusts more bravely
his great tenderness for us.
If our love were but more simple,
we should take him at his word:
and our lives would be all sunshine
in the sweetness of our Lord.

March 20th - The Tenth Station: Jesus is Crucified

Luke 23:33-4, 47

Reflection

According to Luke, Jesus was crucified at "the place that is called The Skull" (23:33). The other Gospels mention that it was called Golgotha, the Greek transliteration of the Aramaic word Gûlgaltâ that means "skull." We get the English word "Calvary" by way of the Latin calvariae locum, which means, "place of the skull." (Photo: The Church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem. Golgotha is believed to be under the large dome.) The precise location of Golgotha is not clear from Scripture. It was near Jerusalem according to John 19:20, and therefore, by implication, not in the ancient city proper. Hebrews 13:12 mentions that Jesus "suffered outside the city gate." John 19:41 adds that there was a garden in the place where Jesus was crucified. (Photo: Inside the Church of the Resurrection. The actual place of Jesus' crucifixion is on the left side of the photo.)

From the earliest days Christian tradition has identified the location of Golgotha in a place that is now within an ancient church in Jerusalem (the Anastasis Chuch, or Church of the Resurrection, also called the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre). This church is now located near the center of Jerusalem. But in the first century this location was actually outside of the walls of the city. (Photo: Gordon's Calvary does look a bit like a skull, but Golgotha probably got its name, not from this rock formation, but from the fact that so many people were crucified there.

Modern archeology has substantially confirmed the accuracy of traditional Christian belief about the location of Golgotha. Since the nineteenth century, an alternative location for Jesus' crucifixion has been popular. The so-called Gordon's Calvary (near the Garden Tomb) does look somewhat like a skull, but most scholars don't believe it was the location of Jesus' death for a variety of sensible reasons. Christians throughout the ages have made pilgrimages to Golgotha, walking along the Via Dolorosa, and pausing to remember the Stations of the Cross along the way. Since I've never been to Jerusalem, I've not yet had the chance to visit the place where Jesus died. I hope to do so at some point in my life.
Why? Why would I join the millions of Christians who have made a pilgrimage to Golgotha?

There's something about being in the actual place where something momentous happened that makes the event more real. I enjoy visiting Boston to view the sites that were involved in the War for Independence in 1775. As I look upon the city now, I try to think about the men who died that day, and about the freedom I enjoy because of their sacrifice. I leave Boston with deeper gratitude for blessings I usually take for granted.

Sadly, I also can take the freedom I have in Christ for granted. For over four decades I've known that Jesus died for my sins. And, even though I've staked my life upon this good news, there are times when it can almost seem old hat. I expect that a visit to Golgotha, like to the Concord bridge, would retool my perspective. I'd remember that the death of Jesus really happened, in a real place at a real time. There the Lord of Glory suffered and died for the sins of the world . . . and for my own sins. I yearn to experience the truth of Jesus' death more profoundly, and thus I hope to visit Golgotha someday.

My prayer is for God to use you in a special way in someone's life today. Let me know how that's answered.

PD

March 19th - The Ninth Station: Jesus Meets the Women of Jerusalem

Luke 23:27-31
Do you picture the last week of Jesus' life in simple terms? Jerusalem, in my imagination, that was no doubt colored by Sunday school flannelgraph, was a small town of maybe a few hundred residents. All of these people came out to hail Jesus as king on Palm Sunday. Then, all of
these same people showed up at Pilate's palace to call for His crucifixion. Though I wasn't a hardcore anti-Semite, I believed that "the Jews" wanted Jesus dead because He claimed to be God. Whenever I pictured Jesus meeting the women of Jerusalem along the Via Dolorosa, there were just two or three women, no doubt followers of Jesus, who were weeping for Him. Meanwhile, the rest of the Jewish crowd was egging on the Roman soldiers, eager to see Jesus crucified.
But if you begin to study the New Testament records of Jesus' death with greater care. You will be surprised, at the things you had completely overlooked before, things that can change your perception of Jesus' last hours.
For example, Luke 23:27 notes that "a great number of people followed [Jesus]" as He walked to Golgotha. Luke gives no indication that they were crying out for Jesus' death. In fact, by mentioning the women weeping for Jesus, Luke implies that the "great number of the people" were upset by what was happening to Him. There's no evidence that that were egging on the Roman soldiers, as I once imagined. Luke makes this even clearer a few verses later, after Jesus' death: "And when all the crowds who had gathered there for this spectacle saw what had taken place, they returned home, beating their breasts" (Luke 23:48). This can only mean that the great majority of Jews who witnessed Jesus' crucifixion were horrified, not happy, to see Him die. They were certainly not among those who had earlier called for His crucifixion in Pilate's courtyard.
The fact that only a small minority of Jews in Jerusalem actually wanted Jesus to be killed is confirmed by another passage in the Gospels that I had once overlooked. In Matthew, as Jesus is teaching in the temple during the days before His death, we read: When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet. (Matt 21:45-46)
The Jewish leaders wanted to arrest Jesus, but "they feared the crowds." Why? Because the crowds "regarded him as a prophet" and, by implication, would have been horrified to see Him arrested and crucified.
A closer reading of the Gospels, combined with a study of first-century Jewish history and culture, can correct our youthful misunderstandings.
Jerusalem wasn't a small village, but a substantial city of perhaps 30,000 or more residents. During the Jewish holidays, such as Passover, the population would swell to as much as ten times this amount. This means that a tiny percentage of the Jews in Jerusalem were directly involved with or actually called for the crucifixion of Jesus. His death was surely engineered by the Jewish leaders in collusion with Pilate and his Roman cohort. As far as we know, the vast majority of Jews in Jerusalem were either horrified by or unaware of what was going on with Jesus.
It's important for us to understand what really happened in the death of Jesus for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the sad history
of anti-Semitism among Christians. For too long it was acceptable to utter the familiar refrain, "The Jews killed Christ." And for too long many Christians used this as an excuse to persecute Jews who lived centuries after the death of Jesus, and who therefore had nothing to do with His death. In fact, some Jews were involved in the death of Jesus, mostly the leaders of Jerusalem. But Pontius Pilate alone had the authority to crucify Jesus. According to the Gospels, the majority of Jews who had any awareness of Jesus' death were grieved, not glad. If we blame "the Jews" for the death of Christ, we're making a mistake.
And, of course, we're also missing the main point. Jesus did not die primarily as a helpless victim of Roman or Jewish injustice. He chose to die on the cross in faithfulness to the Father's will and so as to bear the sin of the world. If anyone is to blame for the death of Jesus, we are, because we have sinned. Thus in looking upon Jesus' death, we join the women of Jerusalem in weeping, not only for Jesus, but also for ourselves. In the death of Jesus we see what we deserve, and we rightly feel appalled.
Then the mystery of grace astounds us. We realize that Jesus is bearing our sin so that we might be forgiven, that He is dying in our place so that we might live in His place. We sense the wonder expressed in 2 Corinthians 5:21: "For our sake [God] made [Christ] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might because the righteousness of God." What a wonder!

March 18th - The Eighth Station: Simon of Cyrene Helps Jesus to Carry His Cross

Luke 23:26
What a shock this must have been for Simon! After traveling almost 1000 miles from Cyrene in northern Africa to Jerusalem, he found the city jammed with pilgrims who, like Simon himself, had come to celebrate the Passover in Jerusalem. So Simon set up camp out in the countryside. On his way into the city, he stumbled into what might have looked from a distance like a parade. But then, as he drew near, Simon saw the horrific spectacle of a badly beaten man stumbling as he was forced to carry the beam of his cross on the way to being crucified. We don't know whether Simon had any knowledge of Jesus prior to their encounter on the road to Golgotha. It's likely that he knew nothing about the suffering man before him.
As Simon watched in horror, all of a sudden he found himself pressed into action. The Roman soldiers, recognizing that Jesus didn't have sufficient strength to carry his cross by himself, "seized" Simon and demanded that he carry the cross instead. No doubt Simon was hesitant, fearing that he might end up sharing Jesus' fate. Yet he knew enough not to provoke the soldiers, so he took the cross as ordered. We don't know much more about Simon than this, since he disappears from the biblical record at this point.
Although Simon only helped to carry the cross of Jesus and was not actually crucified, he nevertheless illustrates the theological truth found in the letters of Paul in the New Testament. In the letter to the Galatians we read: I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:19-20)
The letter to the Romans contains even more detail about what it means to be crucified with Christ: What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 6:1-11)
When we put our faith in Christ, we shared in His death, not by literally dying, but by dying to sin. Our "old self" was crucified so that we might be set free from our bondage to sin. Now we are alive in Christ, who lives in us.
So, in a sense, we ought to identify with Simon of Cyrene, who found himself a surprised participant in the crucifixion of Christ. This is especially true since many of us became Christians without really knowing that we were dying to our old selves so that we might live again in Christ. We were given a gospel of salvation and eternal life without the corollary call to servant hood, sacrifice, and death to sin and self.
So, it was only later in our Christian pilgrimage when we discovered, like Simon, that we were expected to be "crucified with Christ." Unlike Simon, however, we aren't compelled to pick up the cross of Christ. Jesus invites us to follow Him, but even though He is our Lord, He doesn't force us against our will to join Him. Rather, He beckons to us, calling us to take up our cross and offering abundant life in return. As He said earlier in Luke's Gospel: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it. (Luke 9:23-24) discover that we have found true life in Him.

March 17th - The Seventh Station: Jesus Takes Up the Cross - Mark 15:20.

Jesus had said this would happen. For quite some time He had predicted His suffering and death. The first time came right after Peter confessed Him to be the Messiah. Jesus responded: "The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised" (Luke 9:22). So even though the Roman soldiers led Jesus out to crucify Him, they were only doing what He had said they would do.

Indeed, they were doing what He chose to happen and in many ways caused to happen. After all, Jesus had been preaching that God along was the true King, and that His kingdom was at hand . . . not exactly the kind of message Rome liked to hear. And Jesus had been in regular conflict with Jewish leaders, who saw Him as a nuisance and a threat. Then, He stirred up the crowds by riding into Jerusalem as a messianic king. He disturbed the Jewish officials by ransacking the temple and halting its sacrifices, accusing the temple leaders of being no better than a bunch of thieves. Jesus seemed even to know that Judas was planning to betray Him, and to consent to the betrayal. Jesus did not defend Himself before the Sanhedrin, perhaps because He knew this was a lost cause. But He didn't try to set Pilate straight either. And, of course, Jesus did not call down legions of angels to deliver Him.

So, though "they led him out to crucify him," Jesus was no passive victim. He picked up His cross and walked to Golgotha because He had chosen the way of suffering. He believed this to be the will of God, the way by which He would realize His messianic destiny. Jesus chose to suffer and die so that He might fulfill Isaiah's vision of the Suffering Servant of God, the one who was "despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity." As this Servant, Jesus "has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases." Moreover, "he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed" (Isaiah 53:3-5).

March 16th - The Sixth Station: Jesus is Scourged and Crowned with Thorns

Luke 22:63-65; John 19:2-3

What cruel irony! Jesus finally received the words He deserved: "Hail, King of the Jews!" For once He wore a crown upon His head. But not the golden crown of sovereignty or the olive crown of victory, but the thorny crown of suffering. Scholars have shown that the thorns from which Jesus's crown was composed were long and terribly sharp. No doubt they dug deep into the head of the suffering king. We can't really imagine the physical pain, not to mention the emotional and spiritual anguish endured by the King of kings.

What incomprehensible irony! Jesus, the true king of Israel, endured the pain and mockery of the crown of thorns as part of His humiliation for us and our salvation. What was the result of His torture? Paul puts it this way in Philippians 2:5-11:

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross.
Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Did you catch that? Because Jesus humbled Himself, because He endured the humiliation of the cross, including the crown of thorns, therefore God exalted Him to the highest place. For Jesus, the path to glory as King of kings included the path of disgrace. Because He wore the crown of thorns, Jesus would receive the crown of universal worship.

   There has been a tendency in the Christian telling of the Passion story to exonerate Pilate, or at least to make him an unwilling pawn of the Jewish leaders and crowds. Pilate, it is claimed, was a truth-seeking man who was caught between a rock and a hard place. Were it not for the pressure he received from the Sanhedrin and their supporters, he wouldn't have crucified Jesus.
   This view of the noble Pilate seems at first to fit the facts of the New Testament Gospels. But, upon closer scrutiny, it falls short in a number
of crucial ways.
   First, it overlooks Pilate's record of cruelty in his dealings with the Jewish people. Far from being some benevolent ruler, Pilate frequently offended and grievously mistreated those he was sent to govern. The Jewish historian Josephus records an instance when Pilate used money given to the Jerusalem temple for one of his pet projects. When a crowd of Jews objected, Pilate killed a great number of them (Antiquities 18.3.2). The Gospel of Luke records a similar instance when Pilate killed a number of Galilean Jews, mingling their blood with their temple sacrifices (Luke 13:1). The first-century Jewish philosopher, Philo of Alexandria, once wrote a letter to Caesar, in which, among other things, he blamed Pilate for: "briberies, insults, robberies, outrages, wanton injustices, constantly repeated executions without trial, and ceaseless and grievous cruelty."
   Second, it's unlikely that Pilate would have been forced to act contrary to his will by the Jewish leaders and the crowd they rounded up to call for the crucifixion of Jesus. Pilate was surely aware of Jesus' widespread popularity among the Jewish people. This, in fact, would have been a major concern to him, especially during the Passover, when the normal population of Jerusalem (around 35,000) swelled to perhaps ten times that amount. In other words, if Pilate had wanted to keep Jesus alive, he surely could have "gone over the heads" of the Jewish leaders to the large group of Jesus' supporters and admirers. Of course Pilate didn't need anyone's approval to have Jesus killed. He had the authority to order execution. But Pilate was no doubt concerned about whether such an action in the case of Jesus would lead to revolt. So, we have every reason to believe that Pilate in fact wanted Jesus to be crucified, otherwise he would not have sentenced Him to death.
   Third, what we see in the Gospels is, in all likelihood, a carefully scripted plot by Pilate. Knowing how popular Jesus was among the masses, Pilate knew he faced the possibility of insurrection if he himself was believed to be responsible for the death of Jesus. So he had to find a way to use his authority to crucify Jesus, and, at the same time, to publicly wash his hands of this decision. Thus he cleverly toyed with the Jewish leaders and their supporters, until it appeared as if he was compelled against his will to have Jesus crucified. Thus Pilate could get rid of Jesus and, at the same time, insure that popular anger would be directed at Jewish leaders and not at himself and Rome.
   The fact that Pilate had Jesus crucified strongly suggests that he saw Jesus as a threat to Roman order. Though not your ordinary brigand or revolutionary, Jesus proclaimed the kingdom of God (not Caesar) and accepted adulation as a messianic (kingly) figure. Moreover, even if his answers to Pilate were minimal, Jesus didn’t reject the charge that he claimed to be king of the Jews. So, even though Jesus wasn’t your run-of-the-mill Zealot, he was still the sort of person who was dangerous to Rome, and was therefore worthy of death, at least from the Roman point of view.
This is an important antidote to the a-historical and anti-Semitic tendency among some Christians to exonerate Pilate and blame "the Jews" in general for the death of Jesus. To be sure, most (but not all) of the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem wanted Jesus killed, and plotted to that end.
But Pilate must not be excused for his central role in the death of Jesus. He alone had the authority in Jerusalem to sentence Jesus to death by crucifixion, and he must bear this guilt.
   The focus is on Pilate for another reason as well. He’s a paradigm of the person who fails to take responsibility for his actions. Perhaps Pilate really believed he was innocent of Jesus' death. Perhaps he was playacting for his own political benefit. Either way, Pilate issued the verdict that sent Jesus to the cross. Yet he did so in such a way as to appear innocent of Jesus' blood. He did not take responsibility for what he had done.
   How often do we do this sort of thing ourselves? How often to we rationalize our sins, blaming them upon others? How often to we fail to take responsibility for what we have done wrong, preferring to assign credit to our parents for raising us wrong, our society for mistreating us, our boss for abusing us, our spouse for misunderstanding us? I can't tell you how many times, as a pastor, I have heard people try to evade responsibility for their own sins by pointing to the sins of others. And, if truth be told, I've done plenty of this myself.
   Why is this wrong? It's dishonest. Yet, beyond this, when we fail to accept responsibility for our sins, then we lose the opportunity to experience forgiveness for them. If I'm blaming others when I do wrong, then surely I won't confess what I've done as sin. And this, in turn, will keep me from experiencing the grace of God with respect to this particular sin.
You will do well to remember a portion of the first letter of John in the New Testament: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” (1 John 1:8-10)
   As you look at your life, don't be like Pilate. Don't try to wash your hands of that which you have done wrong. God isn't fooled. Rather tell God the truth about your sins so that you might experience His forgiveness through Christ.

March 14th - The Fourth Station: Peter Denies Jesus

Luke 22:54-62

Why did Peter deny Jesus? He was one of the first to follow Jesus, leaving so much behind to walk the uncertain road of discipleship. He had seen mighty wonders as his Master healed the sick, cast out demons, and even raised the dead. Peter had witnessed the miracle of the transfiguration. And he had even walked on water for a few brief moments. So why did Peter, of all people, deny Jesus?

Because he was afraid.

Fear. Fear can startle us in the middle of the night and keep us awake for hours. It prevents us from reaching for our dreams or from reaching out to others in love. Fear cripples our souls and binds our hearts. It locks us in prison and throws away the key.

Fear. What power it can have over us! Fear leads us to do what we would otherwise never do, and it keeps us from doing that which we know to be right. When we're afraid, we can forget our commitments, our values, our loves. In fearful moments all we think of is how to protect ourselves, perhaps at any cost. In fear we can strike out thoughtlessly against a perceived enemy. In fear we run away rather than standing for what we believe. Fear causes our adrenaline to race and compromises our judgment.

Peter was afraid, understandably so. All that he had hoped seemed to be crumbling before Him. The One he believed to be the Messiah, the Savior of Israel, was now arrested. Jesus' death seemed certain, and with His death the end of Peter's reason for living.

Moreover, seeing his powerful Master so helpless must have confused Peter. Why didn't Jesus call down a legion of angels? Why did the One with the power to still the storm not use that power now? And if Jesus was helpless to defend Himself, what did that mean for Peter? How could he escape a fate like that of Jesus . . . arrest, abuse, and finally execution?

In confused fear, Peter did what only hours before he swore he would never do, denying his Master. The one who promised to go to prison and even to die with Jesus was now scurrying to protect himself. So he denied his Lord, not once, but three times, just as Jesus had promised. Fear had overtaken Peter's consciousness and conscience.

Though you and I might never deny Jesus in such a blatant way as Peter did, I would suggest that we might indeed deny Him is less obvious ways, also because of fear. Have you ever sensed that the Lord was urging you to do something for His sake, but then you chickened out because you were afraid? Have you known what it's like to downplay the significance of your faith in some conversation because your were afraid of what people might think of you? Have you ever let fear keep you from experiencing the fullness of life in Christ? I know I have, too many times to count.

What is the antidote to such fear? It's trusting God. It's believing the Word of Christ. It's experiencing the perfect love of God that casts out fear (1 John 4:18). We don't conquer fear through rationalization and mind-control. Rather, we overcome fear by leaning more fully into the strong arms of God, and knowing that He will never let us go.

March 13th - The Third Station: Jesus is Condemned by the Sanhedrin Luke 22:66-71

According to Jewish law, it was wrong to try a criminal in the night. So, properly, those who accused Jesus waited until dawn, when the "assembly" or "council" could legally gather (the "council" is, more literally, the "Sanhedrin". The leaders of the council, which was moderated by the high priest, wanted to know if Jesus claimed to be the Messiah. For them, this would be tantamount to a revolutionary claim, exactly the sort of thing that got the Jews into major trouble with Rome. False messiahs led to nothing but heartache and suffering for the Jewish people. Given Jesus’ failure to raise up an army suitable to rid Judea of the Romans, there would have been little reason for the members of the Sanhedrin to believe that He was the true messiah. He didn't fit the bill, as far as they were concerned.

This may help to explain Jesus’ strange reticence with respect to His messiahship. Nowhere in the Gospels does he ever say, outright, "I am the Messiah." Only in the Gospel of Mark does Jesus admit plainly to being the Messiah (Mark 1:62), but even there He quickly changes the subject to focus on the Son of Man seated at the right hand of God.

Of course Jesus didn't deny that He was the Messiah either, something that might have allowed Him to be released by the Sanhedrin with only a severe beating. His failure to say that He was not the Messiah, combined with His cryptic, "You say that I am," was enough to convince the Sanhedrin of Jesus’ guilt.

And what was His crime? What had he done that was worthy of death?

Well, for one thing, only days earlier Jesus had made a mess of the temple, interrupting its sacrifices and labeling it as a "den of robbers," a phrase Jesus borrowed from Jeremiah in one of the ancient prophet's predictions of the temple's demise. By speaking so negatively of the temple, Jesus was seen by the Jewish officials to be speaking negatively of God Himself. The temple was, after all, the house of God, the place where God had chosen to dwell. Thus by speaking poorly of the temple, Jesus was believed to have been blaspheming God.

Moreover, in His trial, Jesus not only wouldn't reject His Messiahship, but He claimed that He would be "seated at the right hand of the power of God" as the promised Son of Man (Luke 22:69). This was perceived by the council, beginning with the high priest, as blasphemy and clear evidence of Jesus’ guilt. But making this claim wouldn't have been a crime if Jesus was telling the truth. In the minds of the members of the Sanhedrin, however, there was no possibility of Jesus actually being the Son of Man who would share in God's own power and glory. Sure, He could do a few miracles. But usher in the divine kingdom? Hardly. So the rabble-rouser, temple-destroyed, and all-around troublemaker was now, as far as the Sanhedrin was concerned, an obvious blasphemer.

Have you ever wondered why Jesus wasn't clearer about who He was and what He had come to do? I certainly have. It seems like it would have been so much easier for all, including those of us who seek to follow Jesus today, if He had only said, "Yes, I am the Messiah, but not in the sense you expect. I have been anointed by God to bring the kingdom, but not in a military-political way. The kingdom is coming through transformed hearts, communities, and cultures. Most of all, the kingdom is coming through my death, as I bear the sin of Israel, and, indeed, the sin of the world. As Messiah, I must also suffer in the role of Isaiah's Servant."

Yet Jesus didn't say this. It's something we have to piece together from His words and deeds. And we, like the people of His day, even His disciples, often get things confused. We rightly reject the notion of Jesus as a military-political Messiah. But then we tend to limit His saving work to post-mortem heaven for individual believers, rather than transformation of the whole cosmos, beginning with our world today. We don't make the connection between Jesus as the Messiah and the prayer He taught us: "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."

When we confess Jesus as Christ or Messiah, we're acknowledging Him as our personal Savior. But we're saying more than this. We're also recognizing that He came to inaugurate the kingdom of God. Though this kingdom won't fully come until Jesus Himself brings it, we get to share in the blessings and responsibilities of the kingdom even now. Our calling as followers of Jesus is to do the works of the kingdom, so that the reign of God might invade this world.

March 12th - The Second Station: Jesus, Betrayed by Judas, is Arrested

Luke 22:47-48
⁴⁷ While he was still speaking, suddenly a crowd came, and the one called Judas, one of the twelve, was leading them. He approached Jesus to kiss him; ⁴⁸ but Jesus said to him, "Judas, is it with a kiss that you are betraying the Son of Man?"
Reflection
About a year ago there was much abuzz about Judas. With great fanfare, the National Geographic Society had just released the text and translation of the Lost Gospel of Judas. This second-century writing focused on Judas and his special relationship with Jesus. Not only was Judas able to receive mysterious knowledge of Jesus, but also he was going to be one to betray Him. What we consider an act of treachery was, according to the Gospel of Judas, that which proved Judas's excellence. In typical Gnostic fashion, the human body is something to be escaped so that one, in this case, Jesus, could enter the world of pure spirit.
Though a few genuine scholars and lots of pseudo-scholars suggested that the Gospel of Judas revealed something of the true relationship between Jesus and Judas, the vast majority of scholars rejected this thesis. The Gospel of Judas is a valuable source of information about second-century Gnostic belief, but has nothing to do with the actual lives of Jesus and Judas. What we read in the biblical Gospels is what really happened:
Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss.
In the culture of the time, a kiss was a sign of love and loyalty. A disciple might indeed kiss his master to signify the specialness of their relationship. There was nothing sexual about the kiss. It was the sort of kiss that a son might give a father.
Ever wonder why Judas chose to identify Jesus, indeed, to betray him, with a kiss. After all, he could have simply pointed to Jesus, or called out His name, or said to the soldiers: "He's the one over there." Yet Judas chose a kiss. Why?
The simple answer is we don't know for sure, and can only speculate. I wonder if Judas was saying to Jesus: "I'm doing this because I am committed to the coming of the kingdom. I'm forcing your hand, Jesus, so that you'll reveal your true messianic ministry and call up legions of angels to defeat the Romans." Or perhaps Judas's kiss meant: "I once believed in you, Jesus. I loved you. But you betrayed me. You held out the promise of the coming kingdom and I bought it completely. But then you started talking about your death, just like a defeated man. And everything started to unravel, including my hopes for you. So I still love you, Jesus, but I can no longer support you because you betrayed me and our cause."
From our perspective, it's easy to condemn Judas. Few people in history have been more despised, and for good reason. Yet by heaping still more condemnation upon Judas, we miss the chance to confront the Judas in ourselves. What about our own mixed responses to Jesus?
How many times have we betrayed Jesus, not in the obvious and literal way of Judas, but in our hearts and actions? How many times have we confessed Jesus as Lord, only to turn enthrone ourselves as the true lord of our lives? How many times have we worshiped Jesus with our lips, not with a kiss but with words, songs, and prayers, only to reject Him in our hearts and in our actions?
When I stand back from myself and reflect, I want to be completely devoted to Jesus. But in the day-to-day challenges of faith, the Judas
lurking within me reveals himself. I too can betray the Savior.

March 10th The First Station – Jesus on the Mount of Olives

Luke 22:39-46

   Growing up as a Christian, I always found the scene of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane to be a comforting one.   In studying the Gospel texts that describe Jesus in the Garden, I've come to understand more of the full reality of the scene. Jesus accepted the Father's will and faithfully chose the way of suffering. But His time of prayer was anything but serene.
   Matthew, Mark, and Luke emphasize the agony of Jesus in the Garden. The Gospel of Luke specifically mentions Jesus's "anguish" or "agony" (the Greek word can also mean "struggle"). Moreover, Luke adds that Jesus was so intense in prayer that His sweat became like drops of blood. In the other Gospels Jesus explains that He is "deeply grieved, even to death" (Mark 14:34; Matt 26:38). Those gospels also show Jesus as praying more than once before He was ready to accept the Father's will.
He was indeed struggling in the Garden.
   As I reflect upon the Gospel texts, I wonder if a more accurate image of Jesus in the Garden is found in Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ.
   In the movie's opening scene, Jesus is clearly agonizing, wrestling with what lies before Him. His pain is obvious, as is His struggle with His divinely-appointed destiny.
   A struggling Jesus? A Jesus who at first wants something other than the Father's will? A Jesus who wishes to pass on the cup of suffering? If
you're a Christian who believes that Jesus was not just a human being, but also the unique Son of God, the Word of God in flesh, then the scene in Gethsemane is shocking. It stretches our understanding and boggles our simplistic explanations of who Jesus really is. In Gethsemane, perhaps more than in any other scene of the Gospels, we see the fully human Jesus, the One who "in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin" (Hebrews 4:15).
   This means, among other things, that Jesus understands when we are tested, when we are weak, when we aren't sure we want God's will for our lives. In Jesus we have, not a god who is watching us from a distance, but One who knows our every weakness, and who is there to help us in our time of trial. Indeed, Scripture teaches that Christ Himself intercedes for us (Romans 8:34).
   Whatever picture of Gethsemane you keep in your mind, may you let the text of Scripture fill out its meaning. May you be encouraged to come before God with complete honesty, holding nothing back. May you pour out your heart to the Lord. May you wrestle with God's will for you. As you do, know that Jesus understands, and is there to help you.