Lent 2016, Day 44: March 24 (Luke 22:39-71)

Things are moving faster now. There is a growing anxiety among the disciples. Jesus has shocked them many times tonight. He told them one of them will betray Him (did no one hear Him say it was Judas?) and sparked an argument, one that naturally devolves into the same argument they’ve been having for months: who is the greatest, who loves Jesus most.

Jesus again shocks them – and shuts them up – by washing their feet. This doesn’t have the same cultural impact for us today, but it was electrifying then. It would have shattered (and it did) all of the disciples’ notions about what it meant to be a servant, a leader, The Messiah. 

Peter refuses to allow Jesus to wash his feet (“It’s just not right, this isn’t something You should be doing!” he scolds). When Jesus warns Peter he will have no part of Him, Peter goes to the other extreme (“Lord, not just my feet but my hands and my head!”).

What, we wonder, did Judas think? And how did it feel to watch Jesus kneel before him and then to sneak out on clean feet to go betray His Lord? But then, Jesus was only a Rabbi to Judas so he most likely completely missed the point. This act of servanthood may even have helped drive Judas out the door and into the fickle arms of the Priests.

Jesus hints at a change to their ministry. When He first sent out the 70, He gave them strict instructions not to take anything with them. But now? Now He encourages them to take swords.

“Look,” say the disciples, “here are two swords!”

“It is enough,” says Jesus.

Clearly something has changed, something is going to happen. Clearly, they will soon be under some kind of attack. Jesus teaches from the time they sit down to dinner until they reach Gethsemane. John, the trusted confidante, devotes whole chapters to His gorgeous conversation. Luke just wants us to know that when they reach this garden on the Mount of Olives they are exhausted from grief. They are physically and emotionally drained. Spent. And the night is just beginning.

This is their usual camping spot, so they are undoubtedly going about their usual bedtime routine. Jesus, however, has other ideas.

“Watch and pray that you may not fall into temptation.”

This is a bummer. Everyone is tired, everyone just wants to go to bed. Tomorrow is a big day. Can’t we just sleep? Do you really need us to sit in on another of your marathon prayer sessions? (Their reluctance is a little disrespectful.)

There are a couple of curious things here. Jesus knows an armed mob is coming for Him, and He doesn’t want the disciples to join Him on the cross. Why doesn’t He just dismiss the disciples to keep them safe? What sort of temptation is Jesus warning them about?

The first question is the easiest. He seemingly puts the disciples in danger of the mob by keeping them with Him in order to keep them safe. When the mob arrives, Jesus cuts a deal: My life for theirs. It also fulfills Zechariah: Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered. Lastly, it ensures that they will be able to serve as proper witnesses to these events.

We know that the temptation didn’t involve sleep because He wakes them at one point and tells them to get up and again pray that they not fall into temptation. So what is it?

Earlier, Jesus told Simon that Satan had asked to “sift” them all. Judas’ abrupt departure to betray Jesus to the Jews shows what temptation he faced and how he fared. In just a few hours, Peter will deny Jesus three times out of fear. Jesus warns him and instructs him to strengthen his brothers when he turns back. What will the remaining 10 disciples be tempted to do?

In Matthew, Jesus predicts they will all “fall away because of Me” so it’s likely that Jesus is urging them to pray for the time that’s coming when they will be torn apart, leaderless. Very soon now Jesus will be dead and buried, and Peter will be awash in grief and remorse. They are not expecting the Resurrection so it’s going to be a very discouraging time.

The disciples will be very vulnerable – not to physical attack or harassment from the Pharisees but from spiritual attack designed to undermine their unity and fragment the group.

Because they are human, they are going to think, rethink, and overthink everything. They will obsess over every detail in an effort to figure out what went wrong, what they should have said, what they should have done. Don’t bother, says Jesus, don’t waste your time. Just watch. Just pray.

The key here, hints Jesus, is to stick together, to be brothers – one family – and strengthen one another. The disciples – confused, shortsighted and exhausted – don’t comprehend this early teaching about the future church. They just want to go to bed. Sadly, they don’t see that prayer is their best defense against this coming dark night of the soul. It is their best chance of seeing Sunday dawn with the Resurrection of their Lord.

Lent 2016, Day 43: March 23 (Luke 22:1-38)

It’s nearly time to celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Tensions are running high, and the attitude of the people towards Jesus is driving the Pharisees, Sadducees and Priests to an extreme: they are actively seeking, scheming, speculating on how they might put Him to death.

Why now? The obvious answer is prophecy. Events have reached a certain point, stars have aligned. Jerusalem is a bomb waiting to go off with the most powerful explosion mankind has ever seen – one that will scatter Jewish believers throughout the known world.

The less obvious answer is politics. Dozens of factions among the Jews have famously squabbled and vied with one another for power under the Romans throughout (and before) the last 100-plus years of occupation. The crowd unified under Jesus is a huge asset, and the Pharisees, Sadducees and Priests will do whatever they must in order to get control of it. If they cannot control it, they must neutralize it.

Then Satan entered Judas.

This is a complex, confusing statement. It hints at possession, but Judas acted of his own free will. He did his research, reviewed his options and made his choices. He was self-directed. Perhaps then it might be better to re-state this as “Judas became Jesus’ chief adversary.” Judas is not driven by unseen, external forces to betray Jesus. His motivations are very personal – so personal, in fact, that we do not know them.

So what do we know?

The name “Judas” means “the praised one.” That conjures up all sorts of images involving spoiled, entitled children. His surname “Iscariot” may mean “man from Kerioth” or “man of the knife” (we like that one because it appeals to our simplistic sense of right and wrong, black and white – never gray).

John tells us Judas was deceitful, a thief and that he held – and helped himself to – the group’s petty cash. Matthew tells us Judas was outgoing and showed initiative – he sought out the priests to negotiate a price for his betrayal. Mark may be telling us the most by putting that betrayal immediately following the dinner at Simon the leper’s house where the woman anoints Jesus with nard (a most extravagant gift). Was it Judas who decried the waste of 300 denarii?

Despite these clues, Judas remains elusive (the Apostles and early Church Fathers did a thorough job of expunging Judas from the record). But if we augment this information with what we know about the disciples in general, we can speculate on a fuller picture of Judas.

As a group, the disciples (including Judas) have several things in common. They are all outsiders – fishermen, tax collectors, etc. Each has a sincere desire for a relationship with God, and each has been waiting for the promised Messiah. None has found what he has been looking for in the Temple system of worship. All see Jesus as the answer to their nation’s spiritual, social, political and geopolitical needs. Because they are individuals, however, we know that each has his own personal agenda that may include one, more or all of these characteristics in varying degrees.

While Judas and Jesus are alive, there is tension in the group. The disciples frequently fight amongst themselves about who is greatest. After Jesus and Judas are dead, this infighting stops. While Christ’s resurrection must be given full credit for transforming the disciples from a bunch of lower class yokels into Godly men of grace and power, it does make you wonder: is it a coincidence that they stop fighting now that Judas is dead?

There is nothing in the text about the disciples’ ministry activities to indicate that Judas did not fully participate in them, nor do we find anything critical of his attitude. Everything we know about Judas outside of the context of the group is told to us in hindsight: his secret thieving, his black remorse and consuming despair, his failure to find atonement under the Priests, his suicide.

So what happened? How did Judas go from being one of the guys to being Jesus’ nemesis – The Betrayer?

Human nature being what it is it probably wasn’t just one thing but a series of things that turned Judas against Jesus. But if we want a simpler answer, we can find it. We know Judas was stealing, so he either needed or coveted money. Either way, he would have resented those times when money failed to find its way into his pocket (as with the woman and the nard). We know he had relationships among the Jewish leadership since he knew who to approach to get the best deal for betraying his Lord. Do we do a disservice to him by drawing such a short, straight line from greed to greed? Is it that simple?

Sadly, it probably is. Judas’ betrayal of Jesus for a little bit of pocket money may have been a small thing to Judas. He knew Jesus would be arrested, but he may have assumed he would be released from custody after Passover. No harm, no foul, and Judas would be miles away by then (his favorite prophet is Jonah). Regardless of his intentions, Judas clearly miscalculated because his small betrayal turned out to be a very big deal indeed – one which culminated in death for both him and Jesus. It’s an important lesson for us because we are just like him. We betray our Lord every day for the smallest satisfactions and comforts in order to have our own way over His Will. Unlike Judas, however, we have the benefit of grace and the opportunity to confess, repent and be forgiven.

We revile Judas. We hiss and boo and throw popcorn at the screen whenever he appears. We should pity him. He sought to use his relationship with Jesus to ingratiate himself with the Jews and make a little profit. Prophecy, however, used his betrayal to bring about the sacrificial death of the Lord of Life – and condemn Judas’ soul to hell. There but for the grace of God go all of us.

Lent 2016, Day 42: March 22 (Luke 21)

Jesus is on a break between sets in the Temple. He and the disciples are chilling in the Court of the Women by the Treasury and enjoying a little people-watching. It’s Passover, so the entire Jewish diaspora is well represented. The whole world is passing before the disciples, and it is a true feast for the eyes.

The people are coming to the Treasury to offer their monetary gifts by depositing them in the trumpet-shaped collection boxes. There are 13 in all, 11 of them are here; two are elsewhere in the Temple compound. Each box has a designated purpose; each purpose has a designated amount. As a result, you can hear whether a certain person has deposited the correct amount or has put in more (or less) than is required.

The poor widow’s tiny coppers make hardly any sound at all, which leads Jesus to comment that she has given everything she had to live on. It’s a lesson for us in that she had nothing to spare and yet she gave it all. She understood that the only way she could maintain right standing with God was to sacrifice it all and rely on Him to provide for all her needs. Though Jesus doesn't say it, we know her name: it is “Faith.”

Jesus speaks elsewhere about the rich hypocrites who, putting in more than is required (was it all in pennies?), do so with a flourish and a loud, long prolonged clatter of falling coins. Thus, they “sound the trumpet” in an effort to obtain the glory of men.

All this abundance – the offering boxes, the rich temple decorations, the exotic, sumptuously dressed crowds – starts to turn the heads of our country bumpkin disciples (“Gaw-aw-lee!” says Thomas, “Shazam!”), so Jesus takes a few moments to warn them that everything they see will go up in flames very soon now.

This is not a new warning. Jesus has been hinting at this – and His death – for some time. It is, however, a more detailed warning; and yet for all its ominous details, Jesus tells the disciples not to worry – they can escape what is coming in both the short-term and the long.

This is one of those passages we read with too much hindsight. We gloss over what Jesus has to say because we know it as historical fact. It must have been completely bewildering to the disciples. Up until this point, they have been convinced that they have been going to Jerusalem to usher in the Kingdom of God in triumph. Now Jesus is telling them that the Temple – and the city and the nation – will be destroyed.

“But you’re not talking about now, right? When is all this supposed to happen? How will we know?”

We don’t know if Jesus is disappointed that they have asked for signs, but He freely gives them. More importantly, Jesus tells them how to respond to the signs: do not be deceived, do not follow the doomsayers, do not be afraid, do not obsess over how you will respond to persecution.

Yes, Jesus says, bad times are coming. But bad times come and go. You know this. There’s no need to let this fact bother you nor should you use it as an excuse to distract yourself with sex, drugs, alcohol, drama – all the cares of this life. The same end is coming for everyone so watch and pray that you will be counted worthy to escape the final destruction.

Trust Me, He adds. It’s all going to be okay – I have a plan. Any day now, it will be put into action.

Jesus has only been in town a few days, but He already has a set routine: teach in the Temple during the day, sleep on the Mount of Olives at night. He has become a regular attraction; the people are drawn to Him, and they eagerly await Him early each morning when the Temple opens. For a brief shining moment they are open to His message. For a little while, they love to hear Him for He alone has the words of life.