A Week to Remember

It was during this week twenty-some centuries ago that the people of Jerusalem, God’s chosen people, were mostly enthralled by the Messiah’s message. A small number of those present, primarily in the religious leadership, were not in favor of the new program; in fact, they saw it as a direct challenge to the power structure they had developed and hoped to maintain to their advantage. Even the large crowds who clamored for more of what they thought Messiah was offering were largely unaware of what the Kingdom proclamation really entailed. I think that is why the leadership could so easily sway their opinion on Friday.

Had the majority of the Jerusalem crowd that week heard Jesus say, “Take up your cross and follow me”? Had they heard Messiah say He came to bring division, “not peace but a sword”? Had they understood that the rest He promised came under a yoke? I don’t think so. I think many could have been from the same crowd who was fed by the lake and wanted more. Many could have been among those who demanded a sign to which Jesus replied with the sign of Jonah. There were doubtless many who, like the rich young ruler, were looking for the easy road to righteousness. With the Word made flesh before their very eyes, they preferred His works to His words.

What can you do for me now, Jesus? Quickly, before Friday comes, let me have another taste of that bread you promised. From our lofty position on this side of the Cross of Calvary, we can smugly scoff at their materialistic misunderstanding. We can pretend that we understand the brutal Friday that lay ahead of the Savior. His true mission was unclear to them, but we get it, don’t we? We can’t forget what happened on Friday, can we?

Do we remember, or are we more like the craven crowds or the disappearing disciples when it comes down to it? The disciples fled from the Master when He was arrested in the midnight hour. The crowds turned against Jesus Messiah when He was being prepared for the cross on Friday morning. When it became crystal clear that His talk about death and sacrifice was not just a metaphor, the physical reality turned the supporting throng into a sadistic mob, faithful followers into terrified turncoats. When the week ended, Jesus was alone – truly alone in a way we cannot begin to imagine.

When Jesus sweat blood in the Garden of Gethsemane, the human part of Him might well have been dreading the physical torture He knew lay ahead; any man would. When the ones he came to save had done their worst, and He hung suspended between heaven and earth, impaled hand and foot, the deepest reason for His garden distress became reality: He was separated from His Heavenly Father in a way He had never been in all eternity. “Why have you forsaken me?” may be the most pitiable, heart-wrenching words ever spoken by a man. Because this was not just a man; this was the Son of Man, brought to earth to do the unthinkable: die once for all men.

Do we remember why this had to be? Many can quote, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten son.” We claim to understand that He, “so loved the world.” But do we understand the purpose for the giving? Why was such a horrendous sacrifice necessary? To make sense of the events of the “Passion Week,” we have to remember a much older truth: the human race had become separated from the Heavenly Father by the disobedience of our representative head in the Garden of Eden. The price that was required to pay for that disobedience was death. For this reason, in Adam, all die.

“But God,” the two most beautiful words in the entire Bible, “made us alive together with Christ.” (Eph 2:4-6) It was much more than a week that came to a close that fateful Friday; it was the close of an epoch. Everything that had transpired from the first Adam to the Second Adam was preparatory. The death that reigned for two millennia was about to die. Life was going to be offered to all who choose to be realigned with the Second Adam. For two millennia, God had taught His people that blood was required to atone for the first Adam’s rebellion. Yet none of the oceans of blood poured on the altars of the past would lead to life; it would take supernatural blood to create a supernatural pathway to life. God had closed the door; God had to open the door.

When Jesus approached Jerusalem at the beginning of the week, He wept, not for the pain he foresaw but for the unbelief He knew was endemic. He wept because He too so loved the world, and from His divine perspective, He knew the world had come to hate Him. He spent six days that week in an effort to make the truth plain to His own people; on Friday, He spent six hours doing what only He could do. What Jesus accomplished on the Cross of Calvary certainly has physical, material consequences, but the greatest accomplishment is the spiritual victory over eternal death. Human beings would still have to suffer physical death, but the real enemy, the death that really mattered was taken off the board.

I quote at length from Charles Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening for March 30. “Have your sins separated between you and your God, and is your heart at rest? O let me affectionately warn you, for it is a grievous thing when we can live contentedly without the present enjoyment of the Saviour’s face. Let us labour to feel what an evil thing this is—little love to our own dying Saviour, little joy in our precious Jesus, little fellowship with the Beloved! Hold a true Lent in your souls, while you sorrow over your hardness of heart. Do not stop at sorrow! Remember where you first received salvation. Go at once to the cross. There, and there only, can you get your spirit quickened. No matter how hard, how insensible, how dead we may have become, let us go again in all the rags and poverty, and defilement of our natural condition. Let us clasp that cross, let us look into those languid eyes, let us bathe in that fountain filled with blood—this will bring back to us our first love; this will restore the simplicity of our faith, and the tenderness of our heart.”

That is why we should remember this week.