Lenten Journey 2

Second Monday in Lent: Judging God

The Sanhedrin wanted to judge Jesus. Actually, they had already judged Jesus all they lacked was the opportunity to carry out their judgment in His presence. They had one goal in mind and that was to take Him down. They didn’t want to do it during the Passover because of the people (Mark 14:2).

The Sanhedrin was made up of the judging rulers of the nation of Israel. They were responsible for teaching the people what God wanted from them and for enforcing the law of God among the people who called Him Lord. Where did things get so out of hand that they were now determined to Judge God Himself? Do you ever get out of hand in judging God, rather than following Him?

The Sanhedrin’s hearts had strayed from seeing God because they were stuck in their religious boxes. No one noticed how far away from God’s Words and God’s laws they had strayed. Only Jesus exposed that the things they taught were nothing but impossible burdens that would make absolutely no spiritual impact in their lives (Matthew 23). Have you ever been stuck in a religious box?

Another reason they judged God was the fact that they did not want to admit that there was anything lacking in them. I’ve got news for them and us. There is always a nugget of truth in any criticism we receive. We are not God. Therefore, we are not perfect. We will need to admit we are wrong at least once a day. How long has it been since we have seen something wrong in the way we conduct our life? If we can’t think of a time, then we need to sit down immediately and let the Holy Spirit show us something. I’m sure He will not need to look as hard as we do.

Another thought that gave them trouble was that they saw themselves as the defenders of God. God does not need us to defend Him. God can defend Himself. God can explain Himself. God doesn’t tell us to defend Him. He tells us to live like Him and that will draw others to conclude He is real (John 13:35, By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another).

Judging God is serious business. It can be spiritually fatal; we must guard against it and learn to recognize it at all costs.

How does God put up with all the judgments He receives from us? I surprised myself when I faced a situation where my own son was asked to come before the judgment of people who didn’t see him, didn’t understand him, and were not interested in knowing his heart. I looked at my husband and said, I’m not God. I won’t send my son before the Sanhedrin. I didn’t. But God did. He sent His Son to be judged, condemned, rejected and ultimately crucified. And why? All for the love He has for those doing the judging. Pretty amazing isn’t He?

People continue to judge Jesus, they still want to kill Him, mock Him and reject Him. You and I judge Jesus. We blame Him, hate Him and wonder where He is. God doesn’t protect Him from our judgment. God always hopes that while we are judging Him, we might come to see Him as He is and open our hearts to His love. When we come to Jesus, it’s a good idea to lay our gavel down and reach out our arms to Him. He will make sense of all our questions and help us lay aside all our questions when we stop judging Him and start looking at Him.

Second Tuesday in Lent: Do You Know the Way Out of the Wilderness?

Wilderness experiences are not always from the evil one. Sometimes we drive ourselves to the wilderness by ignoring God’s call, but sometimes it is God Himself who leads us to the wilderness. From a tiny infant Jesus became familiar with the wilderness. An angel told his step-father Joseph to escape to Egypt soon after he was born. Purposely exiled, the Holy family clung to each other and followed God’s direction. God led them in and out of Egypt through an angel in a dream.

Jesus’ second trip to the wilderness was also God’s idea. Matthew4:1 says that the Spirit led Him to the wilderness. Another round in the wilderness, but this time He was without food or water for 40 days. This time he had no Holy family to hold Him close. This time He was alone except for the Spirit to guide Him.

Wilderness experiences have purpose in God’s plan. If we walk with Him long enough, before long He will lead us to the wilderness. He is a loving Fatherand would never do anything to hurt us. He knows there are amazing spiritual discoveries on a wilderness trek. There is a huge difference in being led through the wilderness and wandering in the wilderness.

Migrating the wilderness is never easy and the path is purposely unmarked, but there is a way. Jesus showed us the way. He clung to the Word of God. He listened for the Spirit of God. He didn’t sit there and have a pity party for Himself. Instead He found the provisions offered in the wilderness. Spiritual provisions can never be taken away. The greatest spiritual provisions we have are the Words we know from the Bible. These are promises with power to pump up the soul. There’s nothing as nourishing for the soul as the Words of God flowing into those dark, barren, frightening experiences found on wilderness journeys. The wilderness may still be harsh and the path difficult to maneuver, but hope bursts through. King David’s description is beautiful when he spoke, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me” (Psalm 23:4).

David’s comfort came from the Shepherd’s rod, which symbolizes the Word of God, and his staff, which symbolizes the Holy Spirit. The rod and staff guide. The Word of God and the stirrings of the Spirit lead you in and through the wilderness.

Golgotha was the last earthly wilderness journey He took. This journey down the path of suffering was the path to which God led Him. This time the wilderness was in a large city, crowded with people, and He was joined once again by His mother, His beloved disciple and many women. He took each step in confidence and assurance. He was prepared for this ultimate wilderness journey by the previous journeys. He did not cry out to understand why He was sent to the wilderness; rather He comforted others who didn’t realize the spiritual realities that were taking place.

When you arrive in the wilderness, open your eyes to all the provisions hidden there.

Second Wednesday in Lent: Sin is Sinful

Journeying through the Lenten Season teaches me so many powerful lessons, but none greater than how fierce, immutable, impossible, unbearable, intolerable, unmanageable, insufferable, unendurable, unspeakable, appalling, horrifying, (I could go on), sin is. Sin is one tough problem plaguing mankind. We cannot imagine how extreme its effect on the human soul can be.

If I don’t feel up to the weight of stopping my own personal sin, I’ll really get blown away trying to stop others from sinning. Sin is simply sinful.

What can set me free from this body of sin and world of sin I live in? Paul knew. He wrote in Romans 7:24-25, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.” Yes, sin is so sinful that there is no hope apart from Jesus Christ. I too thank God for finding a solution to our problem with sin.

I like to think I’ve made some progress in overcoming sin. But my progress is slow. I seem more in touch with the wretched woman I am the closer I get to the beauty of Christ. That’s okay. It’s freedom. It helps me sees how sinful sin really is. Sin is too sinful for me. I can’t overcome sin. What little progress that has been made has been made in, though, and with Christ.

Although I feel a slave to sin, I also feel hope for my sinfulness. I don’t just sin because I am helpless over it. I know better than that. But I do accept that I am powerless over my sin and even more powerless over the sins of others. When I see sin in my own life I need to go to Jesus. When I see sin in others’ lives I need to go to Jesus. He is the only one Who can make true progress over the problem of sin. Yes, sin is a fierce enemy to our souls, but Jesus is greater than sin.

Jesus, this Lenten season of repentance reveals my utter inability to make progress over my sin. Like Paul, in my mind I long to be a slave to God’s Law. I know He gave it in love. I know that it is real freedom. Yet, my sinful nature pulls me down into the darkness and trap of sin with enticements that my flesh swears will make me experience happiness and peace. Bring me to my wits’ end in my sin management endeavors. Drive out the foolish belief that I can be a sinless sinner in my own power. Much of my good deeds are even smeared by sin. Help me accept and even celebrate my inabilities and look only to You for victory over the wretched woman I am.

Sin is only fatal without faith in Jesus Christ.

Second Thursday in Lent: Naked and Unashamed

I really don’t like to picture Jesus on the cross. I know He has conquered death and the cross has now become a thing of beauty, but I can’t fully accept the beauty of the empty cross without first wholly embracing the ugliness of it. Mel Gibson gave me a vision in his movie The Passion of the Christ. My mind took in another aspect after reading an article in my alumni magazine. My alma mater has a painting on display of the crucifixion. The artist, a Bryan College alumnus, painted this scene to depict the reality of the Bible’s descriptions, rather than the beautiful museum renderings. The artist felt it was vital to paint Jesus without clothing since the Bible says that they took His clothes from Him.

I can understand why other artists would rather give at least an ounce of dignity to the blood-smeared, unbecoming, dying Christ. Just a little loin cloth to cover His nakedness makes sense. As I pondered Jesus naked on the cross, I realized that I wanted Jesus to be clothed for me, for my sake. I want to make the cross less humiliating for me to look at. I don’t want to think of Jesus hanging naked. I don’t want to face the utter inhumanness of mankind and a deeper darkness of the reality of sin.

Jesus, however, was naked and unashamed. Unlike the first Adam, our second Adam brought dignity to His nakedness. He was born into this world naked and died naked too. And as my son taught me when he was five years old: “When Jesus came into the world, they wrapped Him in cloths and when He died they wrapped Him in cloths.” Jesus evokes profound thoughts. The cross crosses my mind in newer and richer ways every year. I don’t want to think of Jesus naked on the cross, but Jesus was willing to experience the shame of the cross to reveal our true shame and show us the reality of our own nakedness.

Looking at a naked Jesus on the cross should produce shame in us. We look upon a shameless One and come face to face with our own nakedness. None of us would want to be naked and nailed to a cross for all to mock. Jesus chose that fate so He could finally cover our naked, shameful condition. Jesus isn’t the One who is shamed by His nakedness; it is we who are brought to our senses when we see that Jesus was stripped for us to help us see our nakedness in the light of God’s holiness.

Job seemed to accept his own naked condition. After losing his children and all his possessions in one day he commented, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised” (Job 1:21). It’s not Jesus’ nakedness that should turn our eyes away in shame; it is how Jesus’ nakedness reveals our nakedness, our own inability to save ourselves. The One who conquered death made a true covering for us. God pictured this in the garden after Adam and Eve sinned when He shed the blood of an animal and made garments for them to wear to replace their pitiful fig leaves. The clothes of this world will not last. We must clothe ourselves in Jesus’ righteousness or we will be forever naked and ashamed.

Second Friday in Lent: He Was Not Broken

I was given communion in an intimate gathering and I was asked to say, “This is His body broken for you,” as I offered the bread to my neighbor. I just couldn’t say it. I don’t like to be rebellious or anything, but my heart could not say those words when Psalm 34:20 says, He protects all his bones, not one of them will be broken, and Exodus 12:46 and Numbers 9:12 specifically told the partakers of the Passover meal not to break the bones of the lamb. John 19:36 says, These things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: Not one of his bones will be broken. So I said to my neighbor, “This is His body which was given for you.”

Now it wasn’t like the others who said, “This is His body which was broken for you,” were doing anything wrong. They were fully receiving the meaning of what communion is about—a grateful remembrance of what Christ did on the Cross for us. They also weren’t saying, “These are His bones that were broken for you,” which would have been in direct contradiction to Scripture. In fact, the statement made could be true in the sense that His heart was broken for you and His heart was contained within His body. I’m sure there were many other physical parts of His body that were broken in the process of crucifixion, but there was one thing we know for sure and that is that His bones were not broken. That is a fact. That was important. That is important for us to remember!

Why? Have you ever asked yourself why it was so important that Jesus’ bones were not broken? Why did God absolutely guarantee that Jesus Christ would not break a bone on that cross? It was customary when the Romans were through making mockery and a sensation of criminals during a crucifixion to break the bones of the criminals to hasten the death process and get the whole thing over with. When the criminals’ bones were broken, they could no longer push up on their feet to allow air into their lungs. That day, it was the Jews who asked Pilate to break the bones of the criminals so that their bodies would be dead and taken down before their Holy Day. John 19:33-34 tells us that they broke the bones of the two criminals, and when they came to Jesus they saw that Hews already dead; to confirm this fact, they pierced His side. God purposed that His Son would be pierced for our sins, but never on this earth would He allow His Son’s bones to be broken.

I’m sure you are waiting for me to give some sound theological reason that His bones were not broken. I don’t have an answer except to say that it is important to notice this. I want to notice it. I want to celebrate it. I want to ponder it.

In my pondering I have had a few thoughts. God the Father sent His beloved Son in Whom He was well pleased to die for our transgressions. He was willing for His Son to be mocked, rejected, beaten, inhumanely treated and ultimately suffer one of the most heinous deaths that mankind could think of, but He was unwilling under any circumstances for His dearly beloved Son’s bones to be broken. Was this one act to keep us from the utter despair of our sin against Jesus? Was this His sign that in the midst of this grand chaos He is still in control and nothing that was done was done without His foreknowledge and His willingness? Does it explain that if God was not willing the crucifixion could never have happened? Was it God’s one comfort for Himself? Did He allow the immense suffering His Son endured on our behalf except the torture of a broken bone?

I’m really not sure. But I want to be sure to wonder. I want to be sure to remember. I want to be sure to celebrate that in all that Jesus suffered for me. I can be blessed that not one of His bones was broken.

Second Saturday in Lent: Jesus’ Dirty Bleeding Feet

I spent some time meditating on the cross of Christ and I discovered a lot about me and even more about how much He loves me.

The first thing I noticed as I meditated was how dirty Jesus’ feet must have been as they writhed, crippled with pain in their distorted position nailed to the cross. His already dirty feet were further desecrated by the blood that first trickled, then oozed, and eventually dried and crusted over after the dirty nail had penetrated both of them. I imagine His toenails and the crevices of His feet lined with streams of dirt and blood.

I remembered the two Mary’s in the movie The Passion of Christ. I remember distinctly that they bowed before Him as he hung on the cross, partly in respect but mostly in overwhelmed heartbreak. Their grief was so crushing they could hardly stand. There was scene where His mother Mary reached forward and kissed the only part of His body she could reach—His bloodied feet. When she drew back, her mouth was smeared with His blood. I remember thinking at that point in the movie that her action and blood smeared mouth should be a hideous sight, but it wasn’t. I thought to myself, I would like to kiss His bloodied feet too.

I could not take in the whole cross, only His feet. At first I saw only how blood-stained, dirty, and distorted they appeared. Then I noticed something that startled me. More revealing than the blood was the dirt on His feet, collected from the roads of earth Jesus had walked in order to show His love for me. The dirt was built up by days of not being washed, from His journey from garden to court, to court to the cross. Then it hit me. Jesus’ feet were in such a state, yet all the while the disciples’ were sparkling clean. How do I know that the disciple’s feet were clean? Because Jesus had just washed them the previous night.

No one washed Jesus’ feet, and so they hung seeming inhuman the way they were placed together one on top of the other with a nail forcing them together, a sight made more hideous by the blood and the dirt. Jesus dirtied His feet so ours could be made clean.

Jesus’ feet themselves almost take on the shape of a cross—the way they had to be laid one on top of the other so the pain would be searing as He pressed down on them to fill His lungs with air.

What does all this mean? First of all, I only have begun to meditate on the cross. His feet themselves display the enormity of His love. When will I be ready to take in the entire sight? It was important that the disciples had their feet cleaned by Jesus that night. Jesus is the only one who can clean our feet. He takes on the dirt that should be ours. Jesus is willing to dirty Himself for love. Now I grasp the beauty of Romans 10:15 better, And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!

Third Sunday in Lent: Are You in Error?

During the last week of Jesus’ life He was questioned about the resurrection by the Sadducees. Jesus began His response to them with these words; You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. It is exciting to think that millions of people are seeing “The Passion of the Christ” movie by Mel Gibson. It is important that we do not let a movie or the traditions of man replace our knowledge of the Scriptures. We don't want to be in error because we do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. In fact, personally knowing the Scriptures is the power of God in your life.

It is clear to me that Mel Gibson and his co-author were diligent students of the Scriptures when they wrote this screenplay. As I've looked up passages to learn the truth about different scenes from the movie, it has become apparent that they knew their subject. In fact, I had never taken notice that Judas hung himself after Jesus had been condemned. The movie portrays the actions of Judas in this regard in chronological order, and helped provide a detail I had missed through my many years of reading over this event.

I enjoy reading a meditation of the Stations of the Cross by Henri Nouwen during Lent. When I first started reading this meditation, I often took things for granted. For example in the Stations of the Cross three of them are of Jesus falling beneath the weight of the cross. I knew that the station of the Veil of Veronica was from a Christian tradition and not in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke or John, but I thought it was written somewhere between these four gospels that Jesus fell three different times. Yet, when I went back to find Scriptures to enrich my meditation of these three falls, I realized that it doesn't even say that Jesus fell under the weight of the cross once. The Stations of the Cross meditation is the efforts of man to enrich our understanding of the events of those last six hours of Jesus’ life. They inspired me to read about the events from scripture. It was Mel Gibson’s personal meditations of the Stations of the Cross that inspired the movie “The Passion of the Christ.”

I encourage you not to be in error like the Sadducees because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. A movie, a meditation, a weekly devotional are not enough for you to know the Scriptures personally, or the power of God. You need to be in the Word yourself. My tradition during Lent is to read the four gospels and all the material that contain the last week of Jesus’ life beginning at Dinner in Bethany until His ascension into heaven after His resurrection. I love meditating on Jesus’ last week of life during Lent as it opens the doors to deeper appreciation and celebration of Easter. I encourage you not to be in error. Know the Scriptures and the Power of God. Below is a guide written by Darrell Bock that helps you study the Scriptures in relationship to the scenes from the movie the passion. Whether you plan to see the movie or not, I hope you will review these Scriptures and create your own movie