The Last Week
When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is this?” The crowds answered, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.” Jesus entered the temple area and drove out al who were buying and selling there … “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it a ‘den of robbers.’”
Matthew 21:10-13
The last week of Christ’s earthly ministry was heavy with conflict as the world’s rejection of Christ, the Word Incarnate, came to full expression. He entered Jerusalem in triumph on Sunday, taught in the temple Monday and Tuesday, spent Wednesday in Bethany, and introduced the Last Supper on what we would call Thursday night, and was betrayed, arrested, and tried that same night. On Friday He was condemned and crucified, and on Sunday He rose from the grave.
Just one week, but it truly was a week that changed the world. Faith was present, but it was weak, faltering, and confused. It was weeks later before the events could really be absorbed by the bewildered and overwhelmed disciples. They had to deal with their own failures around the cross event, to grasp the reality of His death and resurrection, and to begin to understand that this changed everything in their world and in their lives. Several weeks elapsed before the resurrected Christ commissioned them, and before the Holy Spirit fell on the church. In the patience and longsuffering of God He graciously took some time for the disciples’ slow minds to catch up to the events and the change they brought upon the earth. And God does the same with our slow minds, for our problem is that we have heard the story so often that we take it for granted.
On this week our focus is on Christ, the Savior, the Man of Sorrows, the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world, and we will be better followers of His for doing so. It is customary in modern day art to depict Christ with a smile on His face, revealing His joy. We live in an era of world history where there is more levity and lightness than previous generations. Christ did teach about joy, and I believe we can assume that He smiled and even laughed. We see His humor in His teachings and though the jokes do not always translate across the language, culture, and centuries long divide, they were certainly there – human interest stories about the irascible judge that met more than his match in the persistent widow, about guests showing up late at night unexpected, about swallowing camels and straining gnats. Yet the Bible never records Christ laughing; it does record Him weeping. He was the “Man of Sorrows, acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3).
The last week was marked by loss: on Sunday He lost Jerusalem. The triumphal entry was marked by praise, praise for Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah, yet it was inadequate praise. It was neither wide enough nor deep enough: not wide enough for not all were involved, especially not the religious leaders; not deep enough because those who did participate lacked understanding of His mission, and because Christ had not yet died to reconcile man to God and the old stubborn selfishness of people persisted. They would praise as long as it did not interfere with their lives too much, but this was exactly the problem: true worship by definition re-orders our lives.
In recent years public worship for Christians has increasingly emphasized our emotional response to God. The Bible records several such moments when the people of God responded to the revelation of His greatness – Isaiah 6:1-8; 2 Chronicles 7:1-3; Revelation 1:17, for examples. It is right for us to do this, I believe, yet a danger is also associated with this: that we might simply get caught up in our own emotional release and miss the heart of God. This is precisely what happened on Palm Sunday. While the people were caught up in the worship of Christ He was weeping for the city. If worship does not re-order our lives, then it is mere diversion or entertainment.
Christ wept over Jerusalem on that day (Luke 19:41). When everyone was singing, Christ was weeping. Look at the Man! See Him for who He was and who He is, not for who we want Him to be. He is the one who brings light in the midst of darkness, joy in the midst of sadness, peace in the midst of conflict. Yet He is also the one who brings truth in the midst of falsehood, reality in the midst of denials, and God in the midst of selfishness. His heart was not caught up in the emotion of the moment but was in communion with the Spirit. And if He wept for Jerusalem, the city of the temple, He also wept for the rest of the world.
He saw through the shallowness of their praise. He knew the darkness in their hearts, and the darkness that permeates the fallen world. He was not content with just a taste of a better climate, with some respite from the testing and struggles of bearing witness to the truth by being Truth itself. He came to bring life, real life, to make real changes, lasting changes, and He would not turn back until His mission was accomplished. He could foresee the pain and suffering Jerusalem would undergo because of their unbelief, and He wept. But more than the suffering they would experience, He wept for the life they did not have, because they did not know Him. The futility was not measured merely in their future sufferings they would soon endure at the hands of the Roman army, but in the lack of real life and an absence of authentic relationship with God that would result in genuine purpose and meaning.
Philip Bliss, the great hymn writer, penned these moving words:
Man of sorrows! What a name
for the Son of God, who came
ruined sinners to reclaim!
Alleluia! What a Savior!
Bearing shame and scoffing rude,
in my place condemned he stood;
sealed my pardon with his blood:
Alleluia! What a Savior!
Guilty, helpless, lost were we;
spotless Lamb of God was he:
full atonement-can it be?
Alleluia! What a Savior!
Lifted up was he to die;
‘It is finished!’ was his cry;
now in heaven exalted high:
Alleluia! What a Savior!
When he comes, our glorious King,
all his ransomed home to bring,
then anew this song we’ll sing:
Alleluia! What a Savior!
Seeing His compassion, His steadfastness to His mission, His grasp of spiritual realities, His greatness, His humility, His love for you and me and even for the whole world, what can we say other than what Bliss wrote: Alleluia! What a Savior!
Christ still weeps over our world today, over the pain and suffering people experience, over hearts that are far from God, over lives that are missing their potential, over souls that know no real peace, over human spirits that are dead and need resurrecting. If worship is genuine we are not merely touched by beautiful music, or only make an emotional connection with someone’s stirring testimony, or merely have a catharsis of relief at getting scolded by the preacher. Worship that is real is an encounter with God, that sees His holiness and grasps the concerns on His heart, and that in the spirit of worship goes out into the world carrying His concerns into the blackness of unbelief. As a pastor I confess that I am often burdened that our worship is so self-centered and not God-centered.
If Holy Week teaches us anything it is how deep the problems of the world truly go, but the solution of God goes as deep as the problems, even deeper still. The cross was not an accident that Christ stumbled upon, neither was He only a good man who happened upon a cruel world, but He was God of very God, the Eternal Word made flesh, who saw the world for what it was, who was not distracted by the lures of temporary fame and momentary popularity, and who came to give His life for our salvation.
He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and all who invest their hopes and faith in Him find Him to be in their hearts everything He said He was.
Prayer:
Lord, let us not be fooled by the empty praises of the world. Let our worship be genuine, so that our lives are re-ordered. Let us invest our hopes in You. Be to us everything You said You are. Burden us with the burdens of Your heart. Amen.