Final Moments

Mark 15:33-41

      One of the mysteries that some people try to explore is the period of time right before and after death. They get fascinated with stories of people who die and then are revived somehow. They love to hear about the “white light” and any other information that for them takes the mystery out of death. Many want and need reassurance that life continues after death. And they hope to find proof to satisfy this need.

      I personally don’t need any further proof of life after life. I have experienced a different kind of life now that has convinced me, yea, proven to me that life continues after this body kicks the bucket. No story written on a page by a modern author, or produced in CGI could awaken my imagination more, or provide a greater peaceful assurance than I have now.

      But I know I am the exception. Even many fellow Jesus-followers struggle with dying and death. I certainly, like so many, don’t look forward to any suffering that may take place in the dying process. I’m not crazy. Well, maybe the jury is still out on that count.

      Jesus is on the cross. He has been there for six hours, a long time to be on a cross, but certainly well within the norms of crucifixion. He is still alive and breathing. In fact, He has enough presence of mind to quote Scripture. And if you look at Psalm 22 you can get a glimpse into the scene that day.

      And as Jesus quotes the Scripture loud enough for everyone around to hear, He is not just quoting a Scripture to direct us toward deeper understanding, but the quote is a cry of His actual experience in that moment. He feels forsaken, separated from the Father for the first time in His eternal existence. His heart feels alone.

      But some in the crowd don’t clue into the language being spoken. They think He is calling out to Elijah for help. They want to sustain Jesus longer, to stay in that moment in order to see if anything exciting will happen. They are bored with crucifixion. They need more excitement than that. So they try to offer Jesus a little refreshment to hold Him.

      And then it happens. Jesus voluntarily gives up His life. He surrendered to the cross, and now He surrenders to death itself. Remember, this is a death He never should have died. He was innocent, without sin. Death is the penalty for sin. No sin, no death.

      And something happens in Jerusalem that symbolizes what Jesus has done. The curtain in the Jewish Temple, the curtain that separated the most sacred place, the place where cloud and fire had appeared, both visible signs of the LORD’s presence, that curtain is torn. This thick curtain, 3-4 inches thick, and it is torn from top to bottom. This is an act that started with the LORD and continued to earth.

      Even the commander of the Roman troops recognizes that Jesus’ death is different. And the women who have remained, even when most men have fled, watch at a distance. I am sure the tissues were in heavy demand. They had been as close, if not closer to Jesus than the disciples. They had heard Jesus speaking. They had seen Him yawning and falling asleep. They had heard the laughter around the table, and seen His tears. And now He slumps in death.

Mercy Flogging

Mark 15:15

      It is a sad state of affairs when a leader does things with only the short-term in mind. They are so focused on the present moment that they ignore the second and third order effects. When all they can see is the immediate they sacrifice the future.

      That is the problem with being led by polls. We are a fickle bunch of creatures. We change our minds a lot. We aren’t guided by big principles, but by petty urges. Our finances get a little tight and we think the world is going to come to an end if we have to give up our 500 channel cable package! Let’s get some perspective. We wake up and don’t like the way we look and we go out and have surgery to change our appearance. Or we purchase a new truck, because we deserve it.

      The worst influence on a leader is a crowd. A crowd can be stirred up to choose the worst possible outcomes. Crowds can be incited to bring harm on themselves. Crowds become almost mindless when they are whipped into a frenzy. It is almost as if the individual loses the ability to deviate from what the crowd is doing. It becomes very hard to opt out of the crowd action.

      The crowd gathered to witness Pilate’s interactions with the religious leaders over the fate of Jesus is just such a crowd. It is being whipped by the religious leaders to carry out their evil plan. They haven’t been able to stop Jesus on their own, so they enlist Pilate in their game. To them, Pilate is just a piece in their puzzle. He is just a screwdriver in their toolkit.

      The crowd is also just there for them to use for their purposes. They stir them up and direct their actions. They feed them the lines to chant. They were behind the scenes like a puppeteer pulling the strings. The pull, the crowd moves. And Pilate responds to the moves of the crowd.

      I can see it from Pilate’s perspective. He doesn’t want a riot on his record. Riots can be unpredictable. He knows crowds can do things that are unforeseen. He wants to control the outcome, even if it is not the outcome he wants.

      Remember, Pilate has tried to release Jesus. He hasn’t found any evidence that He is guilty of a crime deserving punishment under Roman law. He knows the religious leaders are motivated by jealousy and envy. He sees through their lies. But he is powerless in that moment to stand up against their plot. He probably even knows he is being used by them to accomplish their purpose, but he goes along with it.

      I wonder what backroom deals were struck in that moment, what payoffs to Pilate’s Swiss bank account, hidden stock deals, exemptions writing into the fine print of a law. I wonder if a Rolex was passed to Pilate as a thank you gift. We will never know.

      Watch out when you are being “used” by someone else for their purposes. Pilate does something in the process. He has Jesus flogged. Flogging was a terrible punishment. It ripped the flesh off the body of its victim. Jesus would have been extremely weakened in the process. We see this when He is unable to bear His own cross. This weakening probably actually makes Jesus crucifixion a little shorter. His weakened condition meant that He couldn’t sustain Himself alive on the cross as long as would otherwise been possible. Pilate did Jesus a favor.

Withered!

Mark 11:19-21

      How long does it take for a tree to wither? Before I moved to Florida, I would have thought that it could take weeks or months. But now that I am here, I notice that some of my shrubs wither on a hot afternoon. The leaves all go limp, and hang downward. They usually perk back up when they get some cool in the evening and the dew in the morning, or if they are lucky I will put the hose on them for a minute or two to give them a drink.

      Jesus has left Jerusalem which is packed with pilgrims preparing for Passover. All the available beds are taken, and Jesus and His disciples have chosen to stay outside the city limits, about two miles away. So they travel there in the evening.

      The next morning they take the same route back into Jerusalem. Along the way they pass the fig tree Jesus cursed the day before. It didn’t have any fruit. And Jesus uses the occasion to teach an object lesson about the spiritual state of Jerusalem and the Jewish leadership. They were devoid of spiritual fruit.

      As I have read this account in the past I always had the picture of a tree dried up with brown crinkly leaves. But now that I have experienced what withered trees look like, I have a different picture of this tree. The day before the leaves were perky, ready to do their job. I imagine the leaves withered, hanging limp, screaming for some moisture. Jerusalem wasn’t dead yet, it needed a new source of water. The old way of doing business wasn’t cutting it. Jesus was offering to change all that. And He did.

      One of the important lessons we need to learn in life is to recognize when something is withered spiritually. We need to see it in ourselves and in others. We need to see it in organizations and movements.

      If there is not fruit, or fruit that remains and fulfills its intended function, then perhaps withering has started. When we look at church history, when withering starts, God raises up a fresh movement. It can sometimes take a generation to recognize that death has set in, but once withering starts, unless there is a fresh source of moisture, death will follow.

      We can see it happening is several denominations today. They have abandoned the source of spiritual strength, the Scriptures. They have become a source of truth for themselves, accepting and rejecting what they want to believe, what is politically palatable and comfortable for everyone. They have eliminated the offense of the Cross.

      And the Cross is the source of new water, new life. Without the Cross, we have a naïve man dying believing a lie, and His disciples continuing that lie, foisting this hoax on countless millions who followed. We really are to be pitied if Christ didn’t die and rise again.

Explosive Growth

Mark 4:30-31

      Have you noticed that our society values some things that really have no value! There have been several big stock launches in the last couple of years that made billions of dollars in profit for the owners of the companies even though the companies still don’t make a profit. Think about that. A company that is losing money each year goes public and it makes a profit for the first time, not for the new shareholders, but for the privileged few who happened to invest early. And the company makes nothing! It mines our data and sells it to the highest bidder. It develops software using our pictures that we post to enable better spying on us.

      This illustrates that sometimes there can be unexpected growth, growth that is almost explosive. We see it in business, when someone invents something that lots of people want. Who would have thought that smart phones would be almost required hand apparel? Or Bluetooth ear buds the new ear jewelry for both men and women, becoming a permanent fixture to be worn all the time.

      Sometimes plants have this surprising capacity to grow rapidly and seemingly out of proportion to their original size. Our text tells us about the mustard seed. It is a very small seed, about the size of a period made by a pencil on a piece of paper. Hundreds can easily fit in the palm of your hand.

      And yet, this very small seed produces a very large plant. This is not what we normally expect. I would think that a small seed would produce a small plant, and a large seed a large plant. But the mustard seed shows that what we expect is not always the reality. The ratio between seed size and plant size is not predictable. We expect a Chihuahua to produce a little dog and an elephant to produce a big elephant. This is the normal, expected behavior of things in the world. Small makes small, large makes large.

      Spiritual growth is not like this. The kingdom does not fit the normal mold. It grows from a very small, unexpectedly small seed, the seed of faith in Jesus. How can trusting a poor carpenter from a little backwater town like Nazareth change the world?

      But this is exactly what God does. He does things differently. The people of Jesus’ day thought a mighty warrior would be better suited to bringing about deliverance from Rome. They thought it took might to defeat might.

      The people of Jesus’ day thought it would be the established chain of religious command that would finally bring about freedom, even though it had failed in the past. They thought keeping all the rules would change the world. They thought doing it with more intensity would make the difference, that the people of the past failed because they lacked the knowledge that they had gained.

      But God has a sense of humor. He uses the most unlikely vehicle to change the world. He comes Himself, baby in diapers, fully God and fully human, and goes to the most painful death in order to free us from a much greater enemy than Rome. He breaks the yoke of sin. This act crosses all religious, cultural, temporal, language, and every other barrier we humans can construct. The most unlikely solution is the only one that works.

Day 166

Way of the cross

Matthew 27

Key Verses: 4, 15, 20, 24, 25, 29, 37, 42, 46, 51, 64

It is hard to know exactly what Judas’ words and actions really mean. He certainly regrets his actions, but from other Scripture we know it was not true repentance. But that is not to say that everyone who commits suicide has not repented. This is one of those areas that only the Lord knows. We can’t know the condition of someone’s heart. We can’t know the condition of the chief priests’ hearts either. There may have been, and probably were, some who came to faith in Christ, even though their actions at this point say something very different. At least there would be a place for the poorest of the poor to be buried. Something good came out of something so evil.

We have no outside collaborating evidence that this custom existed. But it might have been a short-lived custom. But it made little difference, because the religious leaders stir up the crowd and ask for the murderer instead. Sometimes we get exactly what we ask for! And sometimes the Lord allows us to feel the consequences of our own rebellion.

Despite Pilate’s symbolic hand washing, he was responsible for Jesus’ execution. He was the Roman authority in that area. The decision was his, and his alone. We can’t pass our authority onto someone else so easily. Husbands have the responsibility for everything that happens in the home. It can’t be passed to the wife. Ultimately, God will hold him responsible, not his wife. We can’t pass the buck. Pilate had to fill out the paperwork. It was on his shoulders. Even though the crowd accepted responsibility, Pilate still bore it. It was his decision.

Sometimes people left without good leadership do some terrible things. We have pictures from a prison in Iraq to prove it. If you look you will see examples of terrible things done by people all around the world. Humans really are not very nice to each other! We have the capacity to be downright devilish. Sin really has left its stain on us.

The sign over Jesus’ head, placed by the Romans, was mean to express their power over the Jews. They could kill their ‘king.’ But the common people joined in the attack by shouting insults and taunts. The religious leaders joined the voices of insult. Even the two rebels threw insults. Jesus feels alone. Wouldn’t you?

We might be tempted to think that the center of gravity was Golgotha and the events happening there, but in the Temple the way is opened for everyone to enter God’s presence. Even some dead people were raised to life (not to a zombie state) and were seen after Jesus’ resurrection. Something happens in the heart of the Roman commander at the scene. His heart is softened.

Paranoia cannot be cured by murder. Even after Jesus’ death, the religious leaders are afraid of Him and His influence. Guilt will haunt us, sometimes to the point of insanity. But their best efforts to contain Jesus fall short. Their most elite military troops can’t keep Jesus in the grave. Even the wrath of the Roman government symbolized in the seal doesn’t stop life from emanating from the tomb. They were always looking on the outside of things. Jesus works from the inside out.