Easter is almost upon us. Consequently, for the next four weeks, I would like to take you on a virtual tour of four places that factored most prominently in Jesus’ final hours.
In this PODCAST, we will visit the Garden of Gethsemane together.
From there, we will move in the coming weeks to the house of the High Priest, the Antonia Fortress, and finally–on Easter weekend–we will walk together on the stones of the Via Dolorosa.
I will be privileged to serve as your humble, awestruck tour guide. My prayer is that with every step we take, we will again and again be reminded that the Bible is God’s written record of…
Real people who lived in real places, who had real experiences, all of which point to a real God.
As you are about to hear in this PODCAST, the answer is remarkably simple and practical. So simple and practical that you don’t need a seminary degree to understand this.
And yet, were I a betting man, I would be willing to wager that “be holy” means something vastly different than many of us have been led to believe it means.
You, my friend, are in for a treat!
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If you have ever wondered how I present the Gospel to a camp filled with some pretty precious High School students, you can hear it for yourself in this bonus PODCAST.
This message was delivered just one month ago at Hartland Christian Camp. Please join them and me at the foot of the cross, listening to Jesus’ final seven sayings from that cross.
THIS is what a gentle Jesus sounds like, even while He’s dying—for you and for me.
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Throughout His life and ministry, Jesus made some absolutely amazing statements, as only He could do!
As you will hear in this PODCAST, Jesus was able to pack into just a few words the most deeply profound theological truths, the implications of which have taken the most incisive theological minds centuries to unpack.
Case in point: This otherwise obscure little gem buried deep within the Miracle of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes, AKA “The Feeding of the 5000.”
Jesus said in John 6:44,
“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them to me.”
An absolutely remarkable statement that underscores our gloriously precious theological proposition known as Divine Election, along with its sister doctrine of Sovereign Predestination—sadly, with all of its attendant questions and endless theological wranglings, divisions, and separations that these blessed concepts unnecessarily generate.
Trust me, courtesy of Philip and an unnamed Ethiopian Eunuch, this is a cause NOT of confusion, but of cerebration!
For as you are about to hear, this eunuch’s story is your story.
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Ironies abound, in the four verses I just read to you. A full compliment of ten ironies by my count. Ten!
The most soul-stirring and hope-producing irony being this—the takeaway of this PODCAST:
“Your most influential, inspirational, impactful life-message—greatest chapter of your story—will come not out of your successes, but out of your failures.”
To invoke Jesus’ masterful metaphor — “You ARE the light of the world.”
That being true, your brightest beacon of light will shine forth from the depths of your darkest hour.
And no, I am not referring to the failure of the thousands who gathered at the Temple on this day in Acts 3 to hear Peter indict them for their greatest failure, as stunning as that failure certainly was.
There is buried within the syllables of this story an even greater failure.
An absolutely epic fail, one that hinges on exactly one word—one word about which I will tell you as you get into this podcast. A failure that underscores the blessed reality that…
“Your most influential, inspirational, impactful life-message—greatest chapter of your story—will come not out of your successes, but out of your failures.”
Call it the backdoor blessing of this amazing story. A God-blessed reality that stands in stark contrast to the what was without a doubt the weirdest experience I have ever had when speaking in a seminary chapel…
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While I am away speaking at a Junior High/Middle School Camp at a place near and dear to my heart–Hartland Christian Camp–may I welcome to the Upper Room, and Jesus’ farewell address to His beloved disciples.
As you are about to hear in this PODCAST, as we break the seal on this, Jesus’ final night before the crucifixion, I do so with something of a lump in my throat and the pinkish hue of embarrassment upon my otherwise rosy cheeks. This because this particular portion of the grand story of Jesus’ life and ministry hits me most personally. And if, as they say, “Confession is good for the soul,” then I make my confession to you, my beloved little Safe Haven family, tonight.
There is embedded within this most amazing scene, Jesus washing His disciples’ feet, a timeless lesson that, if only I could turn back the hands of the clock and the passage of time, I would have taken to heart way back when I was just starting out in my ministry.
This pointed and practical warning is as timely today as it was that night in that Upper Room when Jesus gave it to His disciples.
A timeless truth that has come to define my life and, more to the point, my ministry today. A living lesson of which you are the beneficiaries.
As we detailed last week, this so-called “Last Supper” was a modified Passover seder. I say modified because as we learned last week, the word seder means “order.” As in a carefully choreographed, specifically scripted order to the meal.
Yet, at certain significant points along the way, Jesus purposefully departed from that thousands-year-old order and added to that script.
Just as Jesus did here, in John 13, at the very beginning of their meal together.
It was certainly customary — very much a part of the script — for the host (Jesus) to wash His hands ceremonially as meal began. But why did He then wash His disciples’ feet?
Especially given that every other departure that Jesus made from the seder script expanded or enhanced the significance of their celebration of Passover, especially in light of His coming death as ultimate Passover Lamb.
Every departure, except for this one: Jesus washing His disciples’ feet.
A beautiful gesture, to be sure. The quintessential picture of loving humility and servanthood. So much so that foot washing in some Christian traditions even today, has been elevated to a sacrament or ordinance equal to that of Communion and Baptism.
You talk about, Paint the picture, Rabbi? How about Jesus kneeling as a slave to wash His disciples’ feet (including Judas’ feet) as a three-dimensional, high definition picture of this? (The this to be explained in the remainder of this Podcast.)
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Caiaphas, the high priest that year, must have been fit to be tied.
Well, somewhat so.
As you will hear in this PODCAST, it was Passover. The Holy City, Jerusalem, was teaming with pilgrims. The all-important 3 PM Passover sacrifice at the Temple was fast-approaching.
It was arguably single most financially-flourishing day of the year (second only, perhaps, to the Day of Atonement) as far as the corrupt Temple Industrial Complex over which Caiaphas presided was concerned. There was money to be made this day. Lots and lots of money.
But the heavens seemed to conspire against Caiaphas.
Of all the luck (bad luck indeed), a most-rare, hauntingly-eerie atmospheric anomaly threatened to diminish severely Caiaphas’ shady haul of ill-gotten shekels.
At 12 PM, high noon, a mere three hours before the afternoon sacrifice, the sky turned ominously dark. If it stayed that way, there would be no 3 PM Passover Lamb sacrificed that day.
Well, according to Matthew 27 — Read ’em and weep, Caiaphas.
“At noon, darkness fell across the whole land until 3 o’clock.”
A darkness that drove everyone away from the cross as they scrambled for shelter from the encroaching gloom of that midday backness.
Coincidence? No way!
Now there would be no Passover Lamb sacrificed at 3 PM on this day.
Or would there?
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In this PODCAST, we are now in that six-hour window of time — between 9 AM and 3 PM.
9 AM when the Romans nailed Jesus to His cross; 3 PM, that moment when Jesus finally succumbed to His brutal beatings, His massive blood loss, and the tortures of crucifixion — finally and mercifully to die.
Within that six-hour window, Jesus spoke seven times. The final words of His earthly life pre-resurrection. As we noted last week, a complete, seven-sayings, last lingering look into Jesus’ beautiful, sizable, and irresistible soul.
The first two of these sayings we discussed last week.
We’ll consider the middle two now.
And the final three we’ll explain next week.
Let me give you a heads-up. Get yourself ready for a rollercoaster of a ride tonight. This because the first of the two that we consider now is without a doubt the most emotional of the seven. I dare say, this may well be the single most emotional scene in the entire Bible. I’ll leave that for you to decide.
The second of the two statements that we consider now is equally without a doubt the most dramatic of the seven. I dare say, this is the single most dramatic scene in the entire Bible. No question about that.
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It is called, appropriately enough, the Via Dolorosa, Latin for “The Way of Sorrows.”
For Jesus, it absolutely was a way of sorrows — every single excruciatingly painful step of it, from the Antonia Fortress (where Pilate sentenced Him), to Golgotha (where Jesus’ execution awaited Him).
Not to be clichéd! But if the words, “Mission Accomplished” ever meant anything to anyone in any situation, they absolutely apply here in John 17.
As you are about to hear in this PODCAST, this is the moment, courtesy of John, now forever frozen in time.
The singular moment toward which all of human history, going all the way back to the Garden of Eden, had been slowly but steadily building.
The seminal moment from which the remainder of human history, down to our present day, has been rapidly descending.
The consequential moment when Jesus could literally look up to Heaven and finally acknowledge,
“I brought glory to You here on earth by completing the work You gave me to do.”
Such mystery, such majesty, in these few words.
Indeed, a Mission — the Mission — Accomplished!
That mission that Jesus Himself defined when He said in referring to Himself,
“For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost” (Luke 19:10).
Which, as you are about to learn, means far more than pulling people out of Hell. Indeed, infinitely more!
When the biblical writers, as well as Jesus, use the words “save” or “saved,” it means far more than whether we are going to Heaven or Hell when we die. Sadly, most of our Gospel-presentations focus almost exclusively on that locational / destinational dynamic.
However, a most compelling fact emerges from the first few words of Jesus’ prayer here in John 17.
As we are about to learn, if one’s view of his or her salvation centers primarily upon the notion that salvation is basically a “Get Out of Hell Free” card, we miss so much precious truth. So.Much.More than our finite minds can even begin fully to appreciate.
But try to appreciate it, we must.
So in an effort to appreciate it, let me take you on a bit of a journey, far back in time, to a faraway place, in order to show you where and why this journey originally began. All the way back to what is arguably the single most important verse in all of the Bible.
Please remember that depending upon your web browser and connection speed, it may take up to 60 seconds for this podcast to begin to play.
Easter is almost upon us. Consequently, for the next four weeks, I would like to take you on a virtual tour of four places that factored most prominently in Jesus’ final hours.
