FROM LEE IN TENNESSEE

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LENTEN DEVOTIONAL - 37

When darkness began to reign on our Lord’s last night and the whole world seemed to fall apart, Jesus made a statement in Matthew 26 we need to hold onto. Judas had just identified Jesus with a kiss, a soldier stepped forward, seized Jesus and arrested Him and Peter drew his sword, striking the servant of the high priest and cutting off his ear. Jesus told Peter to put his sword away and then said, “Do you think I cannot call on my Father and He will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?” Twelve legions of angels was enough to wipe out any army and basically the whole population of the entire planet. Jesus was letting Peter know that at any moment, He could have put an end to this. It was just one more way that Jesus was demonstrating His total control. The tide of events wasn’t turning against Jesus; rather, He was directing their awful course and could have stopped the rushing waters at any point.

When Jesus was betrayed by Judas, He let it happen. When He was arrested without cause, He went quietly. When He was illegally tried in the middle of the night on false testimony, He stayed silent. When the first fist struck His face, Jesus turned and offered the other. While they beat Him like a dog, He didn’t call a single angel to His defense. When they laughed, slandered and humiliated our Lord, He didn’t retaliate. When Pontius Pilate ordered Jesus to be tortured to within an inch of His life, He willingly offered His back. When they disfigured and ruined Him, spilling His blood, reducing His muscles to ribbons and exposing His internal organs, He didn’t force them to stop or even to relent. When Pilate caved into the pressure of the people and came back on his word, ordering Jesus’ execution, our Lord didn’t protest. When they dressed Jesus up like a sideshow king and made Him carry His own cross through the streets of the city, He simply went along with it. He didn’t stop them. At any moment, He could have called those twelve legions of angels and they would have torn back the sky and settled the score in the fury of God’s anger, but He never called them. 

Instead, our broken and dying Lord walked down the city streets toward His own demise like a rag doll, limp with exhaustion, racked with pain and as silent a sheep going to the slaughter. Jesus staggered and fell, too mangled and weak to carry the cross, so the soldiers grabbed a man named Simon who was visiting Jerusalem from his home in North Africa. To these soldiers, he was just a random guy from the crowded streets who happened to be standing there, so they ordered him to carry our Lord’s cross behind Jesus as He walked. Then something happened that made Jesus stop. Finally, after all He had been through, someone went too far. Something happened that Jesus would not abide and He stopped walking and started issuing commands. 

In Chapter 23, Luke said that as Jesus walked toward His execution, “a large number of people followed Him, including women who mourned and wailed for Him. Jesus turned and said to them, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me. Weep for yourselves and for your children.” Jesus didn’t stop His betrayal. He didn’t stand in the way of His arrest or unjust trial. He didn’t try to avoid His beatings, His torture or His humiliation. He didn’t fight against His sentencing at all, but when some women felt sorry for Him, He called time out. That was the moment that went too far. Some women cared about Him and cried for Him and that made Him stop everything and say, “Don’t do that. Whatever else you do, don’t feel sorry for me.” 

This is a tricky passage of Scripture, because so many people look at the cross and wonder how they are supposed to feel about it. They love Jesus, and what He endured was so awful, so, are they supposed to be really sad? Doesn’t love make you feel sorry for someone who has suffered so much? It makes sense, but Jesus doesn’t want pity. He absolutely doesn’t want you to look at the events surrounding the cross and feel sorry for Him. You may be wondering why that is. You may be wondering what in the world Jesus was up to. Well, the fact is, our Lord had a secret weapon. He had a trick play up His sleeve that was a sure thing. It looked as though Jesus was being defeated, but the truth is, He was about to clench His greatest victory.

One of the reoccurring themes throughout the ministry of Jesus was this idea of the ‘upside-down kingdom.’ Jesus was always saying things that seemed backwards. “The last will be first and the servant is the greatest of all.” The thing is, Jesus didn’t just teach those ideas, but lived them out to the utmost. He was the Almighty God, but He bent down like a slave and washed His students’ feet. He was the King of kings who lived in abject, homeless poverty. His whole life was one example after another of the seemingly inverted values of Heaven and how foreign they are to us who live in this world, and on that day, His upside down kingdom was at its zenith. On the very moment when Jesus looked defeated, He was routing His enemies. As He willingly and beautifully marched toward His own death, He was flanking His foes. He looked beaten, helpless and defeated but He had Satan surrounded and was about to lay siege to all the old snake held most dear. Jesus appeared broken, but He was plundering the devil’s house. By His blood and death, Jesus defeated the power of sin and forever freed all of us from its clutches. Don’t feel sorry for Jesus, because this was His moment of victorious triumph!

In Colossians 2, the Apostle Paul says it like this: “He forgave us all our sins,having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.”

(Lent is the 40 days from Ash Wednesday until Maundy Thursday, not counting the Sundays. It’s a time that Christians set aside for remembering the sufferings of our Lord. I have put together some thoughts that may help you focus on Him, remember Him and love Him more)

(For more, get to a quiet place, read Luke 23:26-31 and Colossians 2:13-15. What does it mean to you that God brings victories out of situations that look like bitter defeats? What do you think Jesus wants you to feel if He doesn’t want you to feel sorry for Him? He went to the utmost lengths to have you back - how does that move your heart? Tell Him. To see all the Lenten Devotionals, CLICK HERE)

  • 27 March 2013
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