Jesus
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Jesus didn’t say, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you know-it-alls.” He said, “Learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart.”113 In every story He told, Jesus showcased His meek and humble heart, His salt-of-the-earth qualities. Jesus didn’t use the language of the priests or the prophets or the intellectuals of His day (even though He was one). He used the language of the common people and told common stories. He didn’t tell celebrity stories or treatises filled with theological jargon—only stories about sheep, grapes, stones, seeds, and weeds. Jesus was never so preoccupied with being the Messiah that He didn’t see the littlest and least.
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Though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty he could make you rich.
—THE APOSTLE PAUL 114
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Interestingly, the Scriptures signal the possibility that demons do not like water. Jesus said that when a demon is cast out, it walks through “dry places,” seeking rest.115 When Jesus cast out a legion of demons, He cast the pigs that were housing them into water.116 John the Revelator received his sublime revelation of Jesus Christ on the island of Patmos, a small spot of land surrounded by water.117
Water, the baptismal symbol of covenant, is the great connector and amplifier of human relationships. It is no accident that Jesus taught evangelism in the form of fishing lessons and faith in the form of sleeping in a storm.
Desert: Self-Awareness
The desert is the place where you go to find yourself . . . and to find something in yourself.
Jesus, the Son of God, knew a double kenosis, a double “emptying.”118 Once in the incarnation. Once on the cross. In the first kenosis Jesus came down, all the way down, even down to the point of washing His disciples’ feet, which was as far down as any rabbi had ever gone in the history of Judaism.
In the second kenosis, on the cross, Jesus refused to come down. He refused to come down from the cross, and on the crossbeams Jesus united us vertically to His Father and horizontally to one another and the world.
Jesus refused to come down from the deserts of pain, suffering, rejection, abandonment, and failure. He “humbled Himself . . . to the point of death,” on a cross.119
Even after you find the right and righteous path, you will trip along the way. And sometimes you trip and fall to the point where you need to start over. We also need to learn how to start over, not replicate past success. Humility is needed to continually start over fresh. We need a proper humility about ourselves. We need a proper humility about each other. We need a proper humility about God. We need a proper humility about holy things: “We hold these truths in earthen vessels.”120
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Behold, I establish My covenant with you and with your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you: the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you, of all that go out of the ark, every beast of the earth.
—GOD TO NOAH 121
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When you are starting afresh or starting over, you need the desert. The desert teaches humility: it is harsh, is barren, and covers a large part (one-fifth) of our planet. It also covers a large part of our souls.
When the Bible says Jesus sought a “deserted place,” the phrase is sometimes used as a metaphor for the relational places of silence and solitude. But sometimes it means an actual desert, a wilderness.122 In the story of the temptation of Jesus, the Greek word for “desert” is heremon, which can mean either a quiet place, a place apart, or a place in the Negev. The Judean desert is less like the Sahara desert and more like the South Dakota badlands, or the surface of Mars.
The most dangerous time in a person’s life is when riding the crest of a wave. After He was baptized, Jesus went up into the desert, where He fasted for forty days and then was tempted by satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended Him.
Deserts impose asceticisms like fasting, and desert conditions enforce the rigors and restraints of solitude. Austerity is unique to the desert, affording the chance to wipe the slate clean and strip away the unnecessary. Deserts clarify (no waste of words, actions, or energy in the desert), purify (exposing our sins and detoxifying our souls), and sanctify (enabling us to be “called again” by God beyond the dark and doubt).
You sit and wait in the desert. Hence the frequent cries of “How long, O Lord?” The desert exposes as much as it is exposed.
Garden: Creation-Awareness
In the garden we are reminded, in the words of the psalmist, “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.”123 Every living creature on the sea, on the land, and in the air God called “good,”124 and God showed how “good” they were when saving them along with humans from the Flood.125 The prophets used the metaphor of marriage to convey God’s covenant with us, a covenant that extends not just to humans but to all of creation.126 God gave specific instructions for the care of animals in the laws of Moses.127 The animals participate with human beings in praising God128 and are included in descriptions of the new heaven and the new earth.129
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If Israel behaved worthily, the Messiah would come in the clouds of heaven;
if otherwise, humbly riding on a donkey.
—TALMUDIC COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 7:13130
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At every major juncture in the Jesus story, creation showed up—not just in His parables but at decisive moments in His mission. Jesus was born where livestock sheltered for the night. As if the baptismal appearance of a Noahlike dove showing God’s pleasure weren’t enough to contradict the famous Ogden Nash doggerel that “there is nothing in any religion, that forces us to love the pigeon,”131 Jesus Himself likened the Spirit to a descending dove.132 After His temptation in the wilderness, Jesus was ministered to by wild animals.133 He is called the Lion of Judah as well as the Lamb of God.134 In a world of wolves, Jesus taught His disciples to be “wise as serpents and harmless as doves”135 while He reminded them of God’s love for the sparrows of Jerusalem.136 For His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, Jesus rode a young colt; not wanting to separate it from its mother, he brought her along.137 A favorite etching on Christian gravestones has been “The Lord hath need of him,” words originally spoken about an ass.138 Jesus justified the law being broken to save animals in trouble,139 and He picked up a rope used to tether one of the animals to flail over His head when He freed the caged animals and birds in the temple courtyard.140
As the heavens were awakened and split asunder at Jesus’ baptism, so the earth awakened and split asunder at His crucifixion. All of creation, human and nonhuman, awaits the redemption of the body and will be delivered from corruption.141
CHAPTER 13
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Jesus’ Trial and Crucifixion
The cross is the greatest event in the history of salvation, greater even than the resurrection. The cross is the victory, the resurrection, the triumph; but the victory is more important than the triumph, although the latter necessarily follows from it. The resurrection is the public display of the victory, the triumph of the Crucified One. But the victory itself is complete. “It is finished” (John 19:30).
—ERICH SAUER 1
JESUS WAS CRUCIFIED AND BURIED IN A GARDEN. THE GARDEN OF Golgotha was an old quarry that had been recycled into a garden.2 But before the garden of Golgotha, where He was crucified, there was the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus underwent His greatest crisis of faith.
[Jesus] went out with his disciples across the Kidron valley to a place where there was a garden, which he and his disciples entered.3
THE GARDEN OF GETHSEMANE
The garden entered by Jesus and His disciples was an “olive yard” called Gethsemane, a place where Jesus had o
ften spent the night when He didn’t avail Himself of the comforts of Bethany while visiting Jerusalem.4
Gethsemane was Jesus’ most trying time:
He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,” he said to them.5
In this olive grove Jesus experienced the greatest agony of His life, recorded in Matthew 26:39: “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me.” Jesus communed with God but received no reply. “Abba, Father, for You all things are possible; remove this cup from Me.” It was a request that received no response. But Jesus entered that silence and was obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Jesus emerged from Gethsemane’s crisis of faith able to sum up His life: “Nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.”6
In this episode, we discover the collision of two wills: the will of the human Jesus and the will of God the Father. In the end, as was His usual course, Jesus submitted His will to the will of His Father.7
The inner conflict of “Godforsakenness,” and whether to climb down from the cross or bear the cross, did not take place in Golgotha but in Gethsemane. The degree of trauma involved in this crisis of faith is revealed in one tiny detail: Jesus sweat blood. This is called hematidrosis, a condition where the body pushes back on itself and protests its certain future.
Hematidrosis leaves the body extremely weak, dehydrated, and with skin so tissue-thin and tender that even a touching of the skin is excruciating. This makes almost unimaginable Jesus’ searing anguish from the tearing and damage to the skin from repeated beatings, scourgings, and the crown of thorns.
In the “olive press” of Gethsemane, Jesus uttered these immortal words to His Father: “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.”8 The cup has meaningful imagery throughout the First Testament. Scripture speaks of the cup of divine blessing and fellowship9 and also the cup of divine wrath and judgment.10
Jesus, having the full favor of God, drank from the cup of God’s blessing. We, who deserved death and judgment, were on course to drink the cup of divine wrath and judgment. In Gethsemane, Jesus Christ decided once and for all to do the unexpected. He decided to switch cups with us! At Gethsemane, Jesus resolved to drink the cup of wrath and judgment, which we deserved.11 In turn, He would grant us the cup of blessing and fellowship, which we did not deserve.12
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Wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.
—JESUS 13
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The tragedy of the world began in a garden.14 Jesus was betrayed by a kiss in a garden, sending Him to His death.15 But the good news is that He was also resurrected in a garden, undoing both wrongs. Even so, in a world of pain, Gethsemane and the cross that followed show us that God is not immune to it. The olive grove called the Garden of Gethsemane is where the Savior of the world was trodden like green olives in an oil press, and from which there flows an ever-inexhaustible supply of healing, anointing, and blessing.
IN REMEMBRANCE OF HER
How do you remember Jesus? When you tell the “good news” of the gospel, what do you recall most vividly about the story of the Messiah? What message did Jesus want us to remember most about the story of His life and death?
Jesus connected His story to a woman’s story to the point that He issued this injunction: “Whenever you remember Me, remember her.” Jesus instructed us to eat a meal that included bread and wine “in remembrance of Me,” and He also instructed us to tell a certain woman’s contribution to His story in remembrance of her.16
Note exactly what Jesus did and did not say. He did not say, “When you tell the gospel story, remember Peter.” Not, “When you tell the gospel story, remember John.” Not, “When you tell the gospel story, remember James.” But, “Remember Me—and you must not forget her.”
Why did Jesus say that? Why did Jesus want a woman remembered for her act of faith wherever the gospel is proclaimed? What did she do that was so special to warrant the intermingling of His story and her story?17
The answer to these questions will take us through the whole Good Friday story. The answer also gives us a window into why the darkest day of Jesus’ story reveals the brightest day of history.
Before we begin to explore why Jesus said what He did, we must first get a clear image of Calvary. Golgotha, Aramaic for “the Skull,” was a place of infamy. And this was when “infamy” was not equated with celebrity. Golgotha was a small hill just outside the walls of ancient Jerusalem, near a well-traveled highway.18 Everyone equated the name Golgotha with the termination zone for the wickedest and the worst, as judged by Roman law and society. In the Jewish mind, to be hung on a tree was to be cursed by God: “For anyone who is hung is cursed in the sight of God.”19
When Jesus was crucified at Golgotha, He was one of three criminals executed that day. On either side of Him were two “bandits,” or “criminals” (the same Greek word used earlier for Barabbas) sentenced to death for their crimes. It is a grievous theological mistake to leave out those two criminals from the Good Friday story. In fact, Karl Barth insisted that it was the height of theological incorrectness to portray Jesus on the cross by Himself, in pictures or in words, since it does violence to the story in which three criminals were crucified that day: one good and two bad, one of whom became good.20 Jesus did not die alone. He died in company with others—two thieves (known extrabiblically as Dismas and Gestas), one of whom (Dismas) confessed his sins and became Jesus’ first follower in heaven: “Today you will be with Me in Paradise.”21
You might even say with Karl Barth that here was the first Christian community: three people, one good and two bad, one of whom became good. You could even say further that here was the first Christian “church”: three people, one good and two bad, one of whom became good.22
The three crosses of Golgotha challenge every church. You call yourself “church”? Show me the bad people. If you are not living in company with bad people, what right do you have to call yourself church? Jesus died as He lived: in the company of “bad people.” In fact, the gospel has been summarized as “Jesus ate good food with bad people.” We live and die together, good and bad. And we never give up on anyone, no matter how bad. In fact, on the cross Jesus Himself converted only 50 percent, even when the “bad people” were in their dying moments. How much better do you think you can do?
Jesus was seen as one of those “bad people” by the establishment of His day. When Jesus was brought before Pilate by members of the Sanhedrin, Jesus first was accused of inciting civil unrest by urging people not to pay their taxes. He then was accused of proclaiming Himself “Christ [or Messiah], a king.”23 It was Pilate who restructured the accusers’ testimony into his own question: “Are You the King of the Jews?” Jesus’ response was enigmatic, an affirmation not of His identity but of the accuracy of Pilate’s words: “You are saying it.”24
Pilate finally crumpled under the pressure from the three-pronged demand for Jesus’ blood: (1) from the Sanhedrin, (2) from Herod, and (3) from the mob. But he never veered from his original perception of Jesus as something other than one of those bad people. Pilate knew the accusations against Jesus were groundless. He knew the verdict of death was an injustice. And while the gruesome sentence was being carried out, Pilate managed to assert the truth about Jesus’ identity as he knew it: “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.”
Pilate answered his own question of Jesus—“What is truth?”—in what would later become Christianity’s first sermon and first creed.25 In fact, Pilate was so confident of his answer that he had it translated into Greek, the language of trade and commerce; Latin, the lingua franca of the day; and Hebrew. Pilate put up a billboard announcing the truth in Hebrew to the Jews who condemned Jesus, the truth in Latin to the Roman authoritie
s who sentenced Jesus, the truth in Greek to the learned citizens who demanded Jesus’ blood. In other words, Pilate’s answer to the question “What is truth?” was a global message preached multilingually that told the truth about the Truth: “THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS.”26
No hand-washing ritual could sluice the truth from Pilate’s heart.27 The sign declaring the truth about Jesus inflamed the crowds.28 Christianity’s first sermon got a harsh review. The Jewish authorities complained about its message, chastising Pilate for writing it. Pilate’s retort was as enigmatic as Jesus’ own defense before His accusers: “What I have written, I have written.”29
THE THIRD THIEF
Both Pilate and his critics were right: Jesus is King of kings and Lord of lords.
But the Romans were right too. There were three criminals on Golgotha that day. Jesus was as much a thief as those robbers on His left and His right.
Jesus was the Third Thief on Golgotha. The first two thieves stole money and objects from households. Jesus was a different kind of thief. The Third Thief, the one Pilate trumpeted as King of the Jews, pulled off the greatest heist in history . . . right in front of their eyes.
This Third Thief had a long criminal record. Jesus had already “robbed” the woman at the well, a woman with five husbands, of her shame and guilt. He had already robbed the cursed and ostracized lepers of their disease and disenfranchisement. Jesus had robbed the lame, the sick, and the poor of their disgraced places on the fringe, their dishonored seats at the table. He robbed two blind men of their muteness, and in giving them voice to praise, He gave them vision to see. Jesus had already robbed a crowd of five thousand of their complaints and selfpity, and He filled their bodies and souls with good things.