Good Friday–A Week Later

“Then they spit in His face and struck Him.  And some slapped Him, saying, ‘Prophesy to us, you Christ!  Who is it that struck you?’”  Matthew 26:67-68

Holy Week has always been a time of deep reflection for me.  Growing up in a liturgical setting – my family was deeply involved in the Episcopal Church as I was growing up – there were a lot of rich symbols and services to remind me each year of the reality of Jesus humanity in a way that only his suffering could.  Every Friday during Lent we were confronted with the stark evidence of Jesus’ frailty as a human.  He was beaten and mocked.  His body was bruised and lacerated.  His brow was pierced by many long thorns as the kingly crown was beaten down on His head.  And His hands and feet were impaled by nails that fastened Him to the wood of the cross.  If Jesus had not been entirely and completely human, none of these things would have been possible, and our salvation would have been an illusion.  I am grateful for the tradition that birthed in me the desire to contemplate the fact that God “emptied Himself”, as Paul declares in Philippians 2.

So this year during Holy Week I jumped forward in my exploration of the Gospel stories of Jesus and read the four gospel accounts of Jesus’ final hours.  As I got to this part of Matthew’s gospel, I was struck by the ferocity of anger in the words that were spoken.  “Prophesy to us, YOU CHRIST!”  It calls to mind those who profane the precious name of Jesus by using it as an expletive in crass conversation.  The irreverence of it is frightening – do they not fear God?

But then I was reminded of my often demanding heart toward God, the way that I often approach my Lord when things do not go the way I wanted them to.  The Jewish counsel had not come to Him to implore Him to act or to stir them up to worship Him, but merely to find some reason to accuse Him, to pin on Him the blame for something to which He was never party.  And this is what I find in my own heart.  When by my discontent I accuse Him of neglect, how am I any different from this mob of angry Jews?  When I demand in my heart that God act according to my expectations, am I not also saying, “Prophesy to me, YOU CHRIST!”  Complaining about God’s ways or His timing or His discipline is nothing more than a demand that God act according to our wishes.

Here Jesus is silent.  He does NOT prophesy in response to their taunting demands.  And though He often mercifully responds with comfort, God is often silent when we relate to Him in this way.  That is just.  How could we ever deserve in ourselves any other response from God?  We would do the same – silently ignore the unjust demands, or more likely lash out in disproportionate fury against the accuser.   But God is both just AND merciful, and there is no better proof of that than what we celebrate and remember on Good Friday.  The cross of Jesus Christ is the ultimate expression of both wrath and mercy – wrath poured out on Jesus, and mercy extended to us.

Soli Deo Gloria!

Be gone, Satan

I’ve been engaged in a study of the gospels.  My desire is to refresh my understanding of and relationship to my Saviour over the next year or so.  I’ve moved quickly through scripture over the last few years and I needed some time to slow down and savour the truths that have become perhaps too comfortable for me.

The inauguration of Jesus’ ministry to the people of Israel began with the enigmatic incident of His baptism by John in the Jordan river.  The Holy Spirit comes upon Jesus “like a dove”, and then drives Him into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan.  Presumably, the intention of this was to reenact the temptation of the first Adam and establish the worthiness of Christ to be an appropriate sinless substitute, the spotless “Lamb of God” who would take away the sins of the world.  The ultimate truth here is that Jesus wins, but there were two points about this “melee” with Satan that stood out to me as I considered it.

The first point was that, although Jesus and Satan both used scripture, they used very different parts of it.  When Satan realized that Jesus was fighting back with “it is written”, he tried to fight fire with fire.  But Satan drew his salvos from the Psalms, which, perhaps more than any other scripture, expose the inner struggles of man with God, whereas Jesus responded from the law itself, God’s direct commandments to His people.  Satan is not so foolish as to try to find a loophole in the law.  Instead he attempts to play on the perceived emotional weakness of mankind.  But Jesus shows him that He is not “mankind”, but a different kind of man, and the law is a sure and certain anchor for His soul.

The second point was that this first major melee with the enemy was a decisive victory for Jesus. 

Then Jesus said to him, ‘Be gone, Satan!  For it is written, “You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve.”’ Matthew 4:10

Satan came at Jesus with all of his subtlety and deception.  However, the same temptations which overcame the first Adam had no effect on the second.  Adam found himself wanting something other than what God had promised.  Jesus had no ambition but His Father’s ambition.  He had no desires except His Father’s desires for Him.  He was so full of the word of God, and had such absolute confidence in it's veracity and sufficiency that His will never faltered.  It was a battle, certainly, but the outcome was never in question.  Jesus was entirely without sin, and He was absolutely determined to remain so.  So much was at stake.  He was not in the world to serve Himself, but for the glory of God and the redemption of a people!  So when Satan came and attempted to tempt Him to turn from His purpose, and take a course of action contrary to the Father’s call on His life, there was nothing else He could say but “BEGONE, SATAN!

I am inspired and deeply convicted by Jesus’ single-mindedness.  It is something that I find absent in my life, but that I pray for every day.  This is the theme of one of my favourite verses from the Psalms:

“Teach me your way, O LORD,
        that I may walk in your truth;
        unite my heart to fear your name.” Psalm 86:11 ESV

This world is filled with distractions – this was true even in the days when Jesus walked the earth.  As Jesus fought with the word of God to say “Be gone, Satan”, so must we if we are to pursue the single-minded firmness of purpose that always drove Jesus throughout His earthly life.  There is no greater call.