Showing posts with label Holy Week. Show all posts

Monday, April 21, 2014

Easter Sunday

I'd like to wish you all a blessed Easter! This is a day late, but better late than never.
This one is the last of the series in the Holy Week series I have been sharing with you.

Have You Found What You’re Looking For? (Easter Sunday)

Like children scattering around a yard for Easter eggs, you and I are on a hunt.

We all hunt. Our thirsty souls rummage through every nook and cranny of this world, in search of shiny pleasures and saccharine delights.
Every such joy seeker, in pursuit of treasures that will not fade or rust or break or be stolen, must pay careful attention to Easter — not with a nod-off-through-the-sermon kind of attention, but with a real, earnest, eager attention riveted on Christ. If we miss the significance of the resurrection, we scamper past the greatest joy in the universe.

The Joy of Jesus

As the dark shadows stalked the soon-to-be crucified Christ, he turned his attention to joy. Throughout this Holy Week of his crucifixion, Jesus had foreshadowed his death for his disciples who struggled to make sense of it all. He addressed their concerns directly in John 16:19–24.

Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, “Is this what you are asking yourselves, what I meant by saying, ‘A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me’? Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy.

When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.

In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full."

We rewind Holy Week to hear Jesus forecast the changes to come in his resurrection. He wanted his disciples to anticipate Easter Sunday as the cataclysmic dawning of true joy. And here’s what it all means for joy seekers.

A Blood-Bought Joy

Jesus spoke of this joy as he faced the torture of Good Friday. He faced denial, faced betrayal, faced beatings, faced splinters and nails and spears — he could not stop talking about joy! Only joy would keep him going. Joy was on his mind, joy was on his tongue, and joy was drawing him, not away from suffering, but into it (Hebrews 12:2).

Jesus went to the cross for joy: to buy joy, create joy, and offer joy.

As the world celebrated the savage killing of God, out of this sea of foaming rebel hostility emerged a blood-bought, inextinguishable joy.

An Unbreakable Joy

If the killing of the Author of life could not extinguish this joy Jesus speaks about, nothing can — and nothing ever will. No opposition from the world, no opposition to the gospel, and no cultural despising of Christ, will overcome the resurrection joy of Jesus.

As we have seen this week, the unquenchable joy of Easter was birthed in the greatest trauma and tragedy and evil the world has ever unleashed — the murder of the Son of God. Death, the Devil, demons and the coordinated rebellion of mankind all allied together cannot stymie this joy. Persecutors cannot steal this joy away. No power, no event, no enemy, can sequester the resurrection joy of Jesus Christ that burst out of the tomb with him.

Worldly joys are brittle in comparison. Sickness and poverty crumble joy, and the long process of aging and dying slowly strips life of all its worldly pleasures (Ecclesiastes 12:1–8). Death recedes all our joys, save one. Only one joy cannot be thwarted by death, because only one joy was purchased by blood.

A Newborn Joy

The resurrection joy of Jesus escapes the clutches of death because it’s the joy of the new creation, a joy broken free from the evil of this fallen world.

And this makes Easter breathtaking. As Jonathan Edwards boldly declared: “The resurrection of Christ is the most joyful event that ever came to pass.” And rightly did Charles Spurgeon say: “No man shall ever take from me the joy that Christ rose from the dead.” The resurrection is the most joy-filled divine event in biblical history worthy of our eternal adulation and awe and wonder. But it’s more than a breathtaking historical spectacle.

Jesus employed a common birthing analogy to introduce a radical cosmic birth. His death was the birth pangs of a new creation; his resurrection was the arrival of a new creation into history. In his resurrection, Jesus set in motion an unstoppable chain reaction that will one day culminate in the resurrection of the dead and the renovation of all creation.

Here’s the point. In the long history of joy in this fallen world, after ages of unsatisfied appetites and hunger pangs in the hearts of men and women and children, the resurrection of Christ marks a crescendo. Never has joy found greater expression on earth. In John 15:11, Jesus offered his disciples “full joy,” an invitation only possible from within the final stage in cosmic history. Such a stage was born on Easter morning.

Jesus wants his disciples to thirst for a post-resurrection joy as the arrival of a newly amplified joy, a long-awaited and long-anticipated joy, a never before fully seen or experienced joy in human history. The resurrection of Christ will bring the most spectacularly joy-filled event because it ignites an eternally abiding and forever unconquerable joy.

The Old Testament foretold of this joy, the birth of Christ announced this joy, Holy Week seemed to extinguish this joy, but the resurrection of Christ is the point in history when the unassailable torch of God’s joy emerged from the sea of foaming rebel hostility, rose up and lit the summit of an Olympic torch of joy that will burn for all eternity.

A Joy for the Asking

But as magnificently as this joy entered the world in this defining moment in cosmic history, this joy presses close to us. So Jesus taught his disciples to ask and seek for more of this joy. This is the open invitation of the Messianic age.

And this joy makes sense of the logic of John’s Gospel. Jesus said he must die and go to the Father, and would leave his joy with the disciples. Once he was with the Father, Jesus sent the Spirit to dwell in them (another unmistakable sign of the new creation). United to Christ, the disciples would now pray by the Spirit, to the Father, through the Son.

Easter reshapes prayer, spirituality, and joy. With this inauguration of a new creation, the disciples became adopted sons who could pray to a Father who is eager to pour out spiritual flourishing upon them in every way, leading to a full and satisfying joy which nobody can take away.
Which is great news for the disciples.

Inexpressible Joy for You

But Jesus’s bold resurrection joy promised to the disciples in John 16:19–24 is now offered to you and me. We are promised the same “joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory” (1 Peter 1:8).

In Christ, God delights to pour out this resurrection joy into your life, a joy that fills, and a joy that cannot be stolen from you. What do we do? We simply ask our gracious Father for more of it!

The Easter joy Jesus foretold has arrived, and it’s deeply personal. The resurrection is both a cosmic event, and it comes intimately close, reminding us of God’s work in our lives. “The point of Easter is that God is in the process of clearing this world of all heartbreak” (John Piper). Therefore, “Christ’s resurrection not only gives you hope for the future; it gives you hope to handle your scars right now” (Tim Keller).

Such a restoring and reviving joy was purchased for you and me in the resurrection of Christ.

Feast and Celebrate

Easter is for stark contradictions.

If Christ is still dead, death reigns, and all our joys are vain. So hoard every plastic Easter egg you find, because whatever you find inside is all the joy you have to grab. Or, as Paul says, “If the dead are not raised, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die’” (1 Corinthians 15:32).

But if death is dead, and if the dead are raised — if Christ is risen from the dead! — brothers and sisters let us feast and celebrate, for the dawning light of our inextinguishable and inexhaustible eternal pleasures have broken into the darkness, offering us a life of joy in Christ that cannot fade or rust or be stolen away!

Today, delight in the resurrection joy of Christ, pray it bigger in your life, and treasure it for all eternity.

This is the final post in Desiring God’s 2014 Holy Week series “The Final Days of Jesus,” inspired by the new book of the same title by Justin Taylor and Andreas Köstenberger. Holy Week illustrations provided in partnership with Crossway Books and Adam Greene. Previously in the series:

Tony Reinke (@tonyreinke) is a content strategist at Desiring God, blogger, the author of Lit! A Christian Guide to Reading Books (2011) and John Newton on the Christian Life: To Live Is Christ (2015), and hosts the Ask Pastor John and Authors on the Line podcasts. He lives in the Twin Cities with his wife, Karalee, and their three children.

Friday, April 18, 2014

No Turning Back (Monday of Holy Week)

No Turning Back (Monday of Holy Week)

April 14, 2014 by Justin Taylor and Andreas Köstenberger Topics: The Life of Christ

http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/no-turning-back-monday-of-holy-week

The sun rises just before 6:30 A.M. in Bethany, the small village on the southeastern slope of the Mount of Olives, just a mile and a half east of Jerusalem. It is Monday morning, March 30, A.D. 33. Jesus of Nazareth is staying in the humble home of his friends Martha (whose anxiety-driven hospitality had received his gentle rebuke), Mary (who chose the good portion), and Lazarus (whose body would still be in the grave apart from the wonder-working of the Christ).

Just the day before — the first day of the last week of his life — Jesus had made his Triumphal Entry into the Holy City, riding on a donkey over a royal “red carpet” of palm branches and cloaks, hailed by his disciples and the Galilean pilgrims as the messianic king.

But Monday would be different than Sunday. Jesus knew the heart of man (John 2:24–25). He knew the acclaim of the disciples and the crowd was built on a messiah of their own imagination. Despite his many efforts at teaching them otherwise, they couldn’t shake their wrong expectations. They were excited about a national savior who would overthrow the despised Romans once and for all. They had no categories for the idea that victory would come through experiencing, rather than inflicting, wrath and degrading shame.

Judgment Begins at Home

As Jesus and the Twelve awoke the next day, gathering at their appointed meeting place in Bethany to make their short trek back to Jerusalem, Jesus’s agenda was the same as it remains today: to strip away misunderstandings of who he was and what he was going to accomplish so that our expectations could be confounded. This was not going to be a meek and mild Monday. Jesus was about to show them that judgment begins at home, with Israel.

As they walked together over the rocky terrain of the Mount of Olives, and as the hunger in Jesus’s stomach grew, he spotted a fig tree off in the distance. From external appearances, it looked healthy, the perfect place to grab some fruit and to meet his need. But on closer inspection, the tree was barren of fruit, with nothing on it but inedible leaves.

The disciples could not have expected what Jesus did next. He called down a curse on the fig tree, declaring that it would never bear fruit again (Matthew 21:18–19; Mark 11:12–14). Jesus would expound on this visual parable tomorrow. But if the disciples were viewing the tree through spiritual eyes, they would remember that in the Old Testament Israel was often referred to as a “fig tree” (Jeremiah 8:13; Hosea 9:10, 16; Joel 1:7). Judgment must begin at home.

Cleansing the Temple

They continued walking, the disciples undoubtedly unnerved by this unexpected behavior. But Jesus was just beginning.

When Jesus entered the Temple Mount later that day, he was surrounded by pious Jews who had made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem for Passover. Not only would they have to pay the Temple tax (a Tyrian shekel), but they would also have to purchase an unblemished sacrificial animal in the Court of the Gentiles. As Jesus looked at the moneychangers and merchants, a holy zeal and righteous indignation welled up within him. They were turning his Father’s house of prayer for the nations (Isaiah 56:7) into a den of thieves to prey upon the poor Passover pilgrims and to pervert true worship (Jeremiah 7:11). Jesus began overturning the tables and chairs of the moneychangers, throwing out the merchants and their scurrying customers, refusing entrance to any who carry goods for sale.

Face Like Flint

From the perspective of the chief priests, scribes, and Jewish leaders, it was one thing for this teacher from the backwaters of Nazareth to share his stories and make his claims and do his miracles with his followers. But now he was inside the Holy City. He had entered the gates like he was the new David or the new Solomon. And now he has the audacity to declare that the Temple in essence belongs to him and his Father? Who is he to suggest that the Jewish system was enabling sin rather than worship? And how dare he argue that the Jewish authorities were ignorant of true godliness and piety?

From this point forward, there would be no turning back. Jesus is not shrinking back. In fact, he is accelerating the sentence of death.

Evening approaches. The sun will set around 7:00 P.M., beginning the new day according to the Jewish calendar. Jesus and his disciples make their return to Bethany. Tomorrow will be a new day to confound, to turn things upside down, as Jesus continues to fulfill the eternal plan that will take him to Calvary.

This is the second post in Desiring God’s 2014 Holy Week series “The Final Days of Jesus,” inspired by the new book of the same title by Justin Taylor and Andreas Kostenberger. Holy Week illustrations provided in partnership with Crossway Books and Adam Greene. More on Holy Week:

Justin Taylor is Vice President of Editorial at Crossway Books and an elder at New Covenant Bible Church in St. Charles, Illinois. He blogs at Between Two Worlds and is co-author of the newly released The Final Days of Jesus: The Most Important Week of the Most Important Person Who Ever Lived.

Andreas J. Köstenberger is Senior Research Professor of New Testament and Biblical Theology at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina. He is co-author of the newly released The Final Days of Jesus: The Most Important Week of the Most Important Person Who Ever Lived.

The Problem of Palm Sunday

I found this series through a post on Facebook. I wanted to share it here. The links to the site are included with each post.

The Problem of Palm Sunday

April 13, 2014 by Jonathan Parnell Topics: The Life of Christ http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/the-problem-of-palm-sunday

It was the palm branches that made this day unique, and then again, it wasn’t.

For centuries, the church has memorialized today, the first day of Holy Week, as Palm Sunday because of the palm branches and cloaks that the people spread out before Jesus as he entered Jerusalem.

The Gospel writers tell us a crowd gathered, gushing with excitement, and lined the road in front of Jesus as he slowly rode into the city. As he made his way, one step at a time by the beast of burden on which he sat, a sort of carpet was being sewn together ahead of him. Fresh, green palm branches, presumably picked from nearby trees, and thick, worn clothing, likely from the backs of the crowd, formed a tapestry of endearment toward Israel’s long-awaited Messiah.
And according to the Pharisees, this was a problem.

What the People Said

But actually, it wasn’t the palm branches that were the problem so much as what the people were saying.

Luke tells us that as Jesus entered Jerusalem the people began rejoicing and praising God, shouting,

Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! (Luke 19:38)

Some Pharisees try to get Jesus to make the crowd stop. They ask him to rebuke the people for what they’re saying — the whole “Blessed is the King” bit.

The Pharisees get it, you see. This just isn’t any phrase. This is the kind of welcome reserved for Israel’s Savior.

It’s a phrase found in the Hebrew Scriptures, going back to Psalm 118, a psalm that rejoices in the Lord’s triumph. By verse 22 of this psalm, the rejected stone has become the “cornerstone” (Psalm 118:22). This is a marvelous work — by God’s doing — which then launches the day of salvation (Psalm 118:23–24). This day of salvation is the long, anticipated deliverance that Israel thought might never come. But it will, it does, and Psalm 118:25 captures the hope: “Save us, we pray, O LORD! O LORD, we pray, give us success!”

Now this salvation and success is nothing generic. It will come through a person — the Messiah of God — the one sent to rescue his people. So goes the shout, in the psalm,

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD! (Psalm 118:26)

Without doubt, this rambling crowd in Jerusalem, taking its cues from Psalm 118, is declaring Jesus to be the Messiah. That’s why the Pharisees tell Jesus to stop the madness. Do you hear what they are saying? They think you’re the Messiah come to save us. Tell them to shut up.

Jesus doesn’t stop them, though. He says, instead, that if the people weren’t saying it then the rocks themselves would cry out. Of course, Jesus is the Messiah. He has come to Jerusalem to save his people.

And according to the crowd, this was a problem.

What the People Saw

But actually, it wasn’t the salvation part that was the problem so much as the way Jesus would bring salvation.

The people wanted salvation and success, remember. Which means, they wanted the Messiah to march into the city and do hard business with Rome. They wanted to be free from Gentile oppression, even if by force, even if by threats and plagues and a split sea, as they recounted so well in their history. They wanted another exodus, one that expelled the Romans.

Instead, what they got by Friday morning was a bloodied has-been, a man in Roman custody, rejected by their own leaders, standing next to an infamous criminal called Barabbas. They wanted an incomparable king, but they would see a beaten blasphemer. Or so they thought.

The sounds of the crowd this Sunday — this Palm Sunday — would later be betrayed by the sounds of their stony hearts. “Blessed is he!” would soon become “crucify him!” For this reason, there is something nauseating about today. We read of the response to Jesus, but because we know the story, we know it’s not real. It’s not right.

And as we feel the deep tragedy of their words, of their blindness, we shouldn’t expect that we’d have been any different. The Pharisees and the people had their problems, and so do we. If we know our hearts apart from grace, if we could listen in on this crowd, we’d hear our shouts along with theirs. We’d hear our praise, hollow as it were, and then, by Friday, “ashamed we’d hear our mocking voice call out among the scoffers.”

It is not the righteous, after all, who Jesus came to save, but sinners. Sinners like us.

This is the first post in Desiring God’s 2014 Holy Week series “The Final Days of Jesus,” inspired by the new book of the same title by Justin Taylor and Andreas Kostenberger. Holy Week illustrations provided in partnership with Crossway Books and Adam Greene. More on Holy Week:

Jonathan Parnell (@jonathanparnell) is a writer and content strategist at Desiring God. He lives in the Twin Cities with his wife, Melissa, and their four children, and is the co-author of How to Stay Christian in Seminary .