Robert Grisham Posts

Jesus was led, along with two other criminals, to a place called Golgotha. It was known as the Skull. He was then nailed to a cross that he had had to carry on his back. On top of the cross was a sign that read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” The religious leaders didn’t like this, but Pilate didn’t care.

The crowd mocked him, saying, “You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God” (Matthew 27:40)! One of the criminals even mocked him. But the other knew that Jesus didn’t deserve this. He said to Jesus, “Remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

John was the only one of Jesus’ disciples who was there at the crucifixion. The rest had fled. But his mother Mary was there. And in Jesus’ time of need, he was more concerned about her well being and comfort. He said to John, “Here is your mother.”

After some time, Jesus said, “It is finished. Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” And with that he breathed his last breath and died. At that moment the earth shook, and the curtain in the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.

Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the Jewish Council, came to Pilate and asked for permission to bury Jesus in his family tomb. Pilate allowed it. Jesus’ body was prepared as was the custom, he was placed in the tomb, and a large stone was rolled in front to seal it.

Because there had been rumors that Jesus would rise from the dead, Pilate told the religious leaders the he would put a solider there to guard the tomb.

The Jewish leaders who want Jesus dead have the support they need from the religious community. But they have a problem. They lack the power to convict and carry out an execution. So they appeal to Pilate, who is the Roman governor over Judea, Samaria and Idumea. He is the only one with any power. The problem for them is that he has no issue with Jesus. We’re not even sure if he is aware who he is.

So the religious leaders have to get creative when they come to Pilate. They know Pilate won’t care about their real concern – that Jesus has blasphemed God. So they come up with another reason: “We have found this man subverting our nation. He opposes payment of taxes to Caesar and claims to be Messiah, a king” (Luke 23:2).

Pilate questions Jesus but finds no reason for him to be killed. Once he learns that Jesus is from Galilee, he summons Herod Antipas, who ruled that area and who was in Jerusalem for Passover. Herod was delighted to meet Jesus, hoping he would entertain him with some miracles. Jesus wasn’t there for that, so Herod quickly became bored and sent him back to Pilate.

Pilate questioned him again, and once again found that Jesus had done nothing that warranted death. And then he had an idea. Every year at Passover he would release a prisoner. He selected the worse prisoner he had, a man named Barabbas. Surely the crowd would prefer to have Jesus released over this truly evil man. But the religious leaders persuaded the crowd that this was not the right decision. They yelled out, “Release Barabbas to us!” Pilate then asked the crowd, “What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called the Messiah?”

The response: “Crucify him!”

This is the same crowd who only days earlier had welcomed Jesus as they would welcome a conquering king. And now they wanted him killed.

Pilate relented. He had Jesus stripped and beaten. The soldiers spit on him and mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews.” They made a crown of thorns and pushed it down upon his head.

Pilate then washed his hands of the mess and did what the Jewish leaders wanted. He sentenced Jesus to death.

A lot has happened in the last few hours. Jesus has shared a final meal with his friends. He’s then shared some of his most important final teachings them. And then he’s communed with his Father through prayer.

He now invites Peter, James and John to sit with him while he continues to pray. It’s such an honor to be invited into this time. He’s vulnerable with them, sharing that, “my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death” (Mark 14:34). Jesus is determined to complete the task, but he’s scared. And he wants his friends to be with him.

He prays such an honest prayer to God: “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will but yours be done” (Luke 22:42). I admit that I don’t know for sure how to take this. I think it definitely shows his humanity though. When he finishes praying he looks over and sees that his three friends had fallen asleep. It says that they were exhausted from sorrow. It still hurts Jesus. He feels alone. This happens two more times.

At that moment Judas, along with a group of religious rulers and soldiers, entered the garden and approached Jesus. Judas came to Jesus and kissed him. This was the sign to the soldiers. They prepared to arrest him. Peter attacked, chopping off the ear of a soldier. Jesus immediately scolded Peter and healed the man.

And then Jesus was arrested. Over the next few hours he stood trial before various rulers. He was beaten over and over again. Peter was asked three times if he was a part of Jesus’ cohort. Three times he said no. The rooster crowed just as Jesus had said, and Peter wept. He was wrecked, but perhaps not as much as Judas was. His despair was so great that he committed suicide, leaving the thirty coins under where he hanged.

Jesus and his disciples (minus Judas) left the upper room and headed for the Mount of Olives. Here Jesus gives a powerful teaching to them that he has apparently waited on until this point. Here are some of my takeaways from his teaching.

I am the vine and you are the branches (John 15:1-8) – Jesus is reminding them that they were never meant to do life on their own. Life with God is the goal. He tells them, “If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

Love one another (John 15:9-17) – For the past three years Jesus has been modeling love for them. His love for people is rooted in the relationship he has with God. The same will be true for them. And then he gives them one last command: “Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13).

You’re not going to be alone (John 15:18-16:15) – Jesus is about to share something with them that will literally change the world. He tells them that after he is gone, the Father is going to send an Advocate for them – the Holy Spirit. And they are going to need this Advocate, because what Jesus is about to go through (persecution) is going to happen to them as well. But God will never leave them.

Jesus then leaves them to pray. He prays for himself (John 17:1-5). His prayer is that God would glorify him in God’s presence with the glory the two of them had before the world began. I don’t know what this means, but it sure sounds beautiful and powerful. He next prays for his disciples (John 17:6-19). He knows that they have no idea what is about to happen. He asks that God will protect them by the power of God’s name, and he asks that they will be one as they are one. Finally, he prays for the followers who will come after he is gone (John 17:20-26). His prayer is that we would be one as he and God were one. The prayer is once again for unity and oneness. He acknowledges that when we are brought to complete unity, “then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” (John 17:23).

Today’s passage tells the story of Jesus’ last few hours in an upper room with his disciples. It begins with Jesus initiating a ritual that is repeated in churches worldwide even today. He takes break, breaks it, and shares it with them, telling them that when they break the bread together, they are remembering what he is about to do. He then take the cup of wine and says that it signifies his blood that is about to be shed. Once again, when they drink it they are reminded of his sacrifice.

The disciples then do the unthinkable. They once again begin to argue about the roles that they will play in the coming kingdom. Rather than yell at them, which I would have likely done, Jesus models humility for them. He washed his disciples’ feet, something a rabbi wouldn’t normally do for his disciples.

Jesus then calls out Judas. He identifies him as the one who will betray him, and then he tells Judas to leave and do what he’s planning.

Finally, Peter, inspired by the acts of Jesus and frustrated by the response of Judas, decides to let Jesus know how committed he is. He tells Jesus that he is ready to go to prison or even to death with Jesus.

Jesus pauses, and then says, “I tell you, Peter, before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you even know me” (Luke 22:34).

Peter thinks there’s no way this could ever be the case, but a lot is going to change in the coming hours.

I mentioned earlier that the religious leaders were nervous about arresting Jesus during the festival surrounding Passover. Now they’re two days away from the actual day (Matthew 26:1-2), and they know it can’t happen then. But they also know that this might be their best opportunity yet. They have continued to rally support to their cause. This now includes Caiphas, the high priest. And now something even better has happened.

Judas, one of Jesus’ own disciples, has come forward and offered, for a price, to lead Jesus right into their hands. What was the price? Thirty pieces of silver.

We don’t know much about Judas. He was invited by Jesus to “come and follow me” just as he had many others. And then he was invited into the inner core of 12. I imagine that he, like the other disciples, had very different ideas of what the Messiah would, and like the others, Jesus had not met many of those expectations, especially as he continued to talk about death.

Peter had been the most outspoken when talking about Jesus not measuring up to his expectations. But at some point he came to the conclusion that he was going to need to give up these expectations and surrender to Jesus’ plan. It seems that Judas was never able to do this.

It was challenging knowing what to write about in today’s passages. They’re all about Jesus’ last bit of teaching on the signs that were to come. They’re all very apocalyptic, and they’ve in my opinion been used as the foundation for some very warped beliefs. They’re some of the passages that I often skim over, but I guess today I get the opportunity to interact with them (yay!).

I will admit on the front end that I don’t know exactly what Jesus is talking about here. He begins by talking about the destruction of the temple, which means SO much to God’s people. It’s been destroyed before, and the one that is there now is a shadow of its former self. But still, it’s theirs. And Jesus says that one day it will be destroyed. That actually happens a little less than 40 years from this point.

Others believe that Jesus is talking about when he will come again. The disciples still aren’t at the point of accepting the fact that Jesus is about to die. They have no idea that Jesus will rise from the dead, and so therefore there’s absolutely no context for coming again at some point in the future. So I don’t know if that’s what he’s talking about or not.

The churches I grew up in believed that Jesus could come back at any moment, and if you weren’t ready, you were in trouble. What did it mean to be ready? It meant that you had confessed your sins and asked Jesus to save you. But how could you know if you were truly sincere in that moment? Fear was a tactic that was used quite often, and as a teenager who eagerly wanted to follow Jesus, and was also scared of burning in hell for eternity, there were times when I doubted if I had been sincere. Re-dedications/commitments were a big thing during those years. You had to make sure you were truly saved.

This is not something I think about too often, but it’s baggage nonetheless. And I don’t believe Jesus had all of this in mind when he said these words. I’m really glad to have moved beyond this period in my life. But the questions are still there. I don’t want to dismiss the passages completely due to the baggage and the way they’ve been used to cause more harm than good (which I absolutely believe). So I continue to wrestle with them.

At the end of the day, I believe that Jesus wanted his followers to live their lives with no regrets. He wanted them to choose faithfulness, wisdom and righteousness everyday. He knew there would be days where that wasn’t the case. They would make mistakes. They would chose themselves over others. They would choose their way over God’s. But they could choose to rethink and come back go God’s way of living. This is grace.

It’s now Tuesday. Jesus is still in Jerusalem, and it seems that he spends his entire day talking with and about the religious leaders. They are still trying to figure out a way to have him arrested, tried and killed. Remember that they believe that he is a threat to their entire religion and he must be stopped by any means necessary. They don’t like the timing of Passover because they know that the people like Jesus, and they are worried about a riot. But they can’t allow this to continue.

These interactions between Jesus and the religious leaders show the wisdom and overall cunning intelligence of Jesus. He once again tells lots of stories. One of those stories goes like this.

There was a man who had two sons. He told them both to go and work in his vineyard. The first said no, but then he went and did it anyway. The second said yes, but then he didn’t go. Jesus’ question to them was, “Which of the two did what his father wanted?” The answer was obvious. It was the first. Jesus then said, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him” (Matthew 21:31-32).

What was Jesus getting at? To an ordinary Jewish person, the religious leaders were the ones closest to God. They had degrees. They knew the laws. They talked about God everyday. And the tax collectors and prostitutes were the sinners. They had no shot with God because of their chosen professions. Yet once again Jesus was flipping the script. Those who once had no shot were now ahead of things when it came to entering the kingdom of God.

Why is that? Well, I think it comes down to humility. You can’t have repentance without humility. The tax collectors and prostitutes were never told by the religious leaders that they had a shot with God. John the Baptist gave them that invitation. So too did Jesus. And for many of them, their lives were changed because of that invitation. The religious leaders on the outside looked like the ones closest to God, but their hearts were far from him because they lacked humility. And they were fine simply appearing like good people.

Jesus and his disciples were now in Jerusalem. It was a Sunday. So many people were there because it was almost Passover. As I mentioned in an earlier reflection, Passover was one of the three primary feasts in which Jews from all over would come to Jerusalem.

During Passover the Jewish people remembered the time when God freed his people from Egypt. They had been slaves there for almost 400 years before God raised up Moses to lead his people.

If it’s been awhile since you’ve heard this story, let me give a quick summary.

Moses went to Pharaoh and told him to “let my people go.” When Pharaoh refused, God sent a plague. Each time Pharaoh would agree to let them go, but then he would change his mind. And thus God would send another plague. The final plague was that God sent an angel of death throughout Egypt to kill every firstborn son. But God’s people were told to sacrifice a lamb, and take the blood and spread it on their front doors. The angel passed over those homes that had the blood on the doors.

Yes, I know, it’s a very graphic story. But it was, and still is today, a truly important story for the Jewish people.

Jesus purposefully chose this time of Passover as the time when he would be handed over to the religious leaders and be killed. He was the true lamb of God, and his death would provide true rescue and true freedom for not simply the Jewish people but for all people.

One last story about Mary. It’s found in John 12.

It’s six days until Passover. Jesus and his disciples have slowly but surely been making their way to Jerusalem. They’ve heard rumors that Jesus is going to be arrested as soon as he gets to Jerusalem. Yet Jesus presses on. He has continued to try to help his disciples understand what is about to happen, but they still don’t get it. They still think that Jesus will soon overthrow Rome and become the king, and they continue to argue about what their role in his kingdom will be.

But one person does get it.

Jesus and his disciples go to Bethany on their way to Jerusalem. He wants to see Mary, Martha and Lazarus one last time. John tells us that Martha served dinner, and Lazarus, who not that long ago died and then was raised from the dead by Jesus, reclined at the table with him.

Mary then came out. She took a pint of expensive perfume and poured it on Jesus’ feet. She then wiped his feet with her hair. “And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume” (John 12:3).

To every person there this was an outrageous act. Judas Iscariot (we’ll get to him later) expresses his outrage by saying, “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor. It was worth a years’ wages.” Yes, this was expensive perfume. John notes that Judas did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief and wanted the money for himself.

But Judas wasn’t the only one who had a problem with what Mary had just done. Mary had let her hair down in order to wipe the perfume from his feet. This was scandalous in those days. Why would she do such a thing!

Jesus, though, was honored by what Mary had done. She understood more than anyone else what was about to happen, and she was honoring him. Was it a reasonable response to Jesus? No. It was extravagant. It was worship. She was in fact preparing his body for burial. Mark tells this story and ends with the following statement that Jesus made about her…

“Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her (Mark 14:9).