Here are few good posts focused on the cross, resurrection, and our salvation for your weekend reading:
Jared Wilson considers the many things Jesus accomplished on the cross for us.
Steve Dewitt writes about Jesus’ resurrection body – which points to what our resurrection bodies will one day be like.
Tullian Tchividjian reminds us that because of Christ we are already righteous – and that changes everything.
Have a great Resurrection Sunday celebrating our Risen Savior!
Last week I posted some daily Passion Week reflections. Below are some reflections for Easter and the following week to help us ponder what Christ’s resurrection means to us:
Sunday – Rejoice: Celebrate His Resurrection
Monday – Received – Embrace the Gospel
Tuesday – Raised: Live Your New Life
Wednesday – Reigns: Submit to Your King
Thursday – Resurrected: Victory Over Death
Friday – Returning – With the Lord
Saturday – Reborn – Hope in Your Inheritance
Sunday – Ransomed: Praise to the Lamb
And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”
– Matthew 26:39
What is this cup? It is clearly a reference to the wrath of God for your sins and mine….
That’s why there’s shuddering terror and deep distress for him at this moment. In the crucible of human weakness he’s brought face to face with the abhorrent reality of bearing our iniquity and becoming the object of God’s full and furious wrath….
This is what bearing our sins means to him – utter distress of soul as he confronts total abandonment and absolute wrath from his Father on the cross, a distress and an abandonment and a rejection we cannot begin to grasp.
In this, our Savior’s darkest hour…do you recognize his love for you?
– C. J. Mahaney
In what order did the events of Passion Week occur, and where? Here are some interesting attempts to visualize the answers to those questions.
First, Bible Gateway has created a Holy Week Timeline. You can get a glimpse of it below. For more information and to see details, visit here. 
Meanwhile Crossway has put together a google map with possible locations of the various events of Jesus’ last week. You can see a glimpse below. See here to access the actual map and descriptions of each location.
Thanks to Justin Taylor for noting these visual resources on his blog. Of course there is disagreement on the order and exact location of some events, but these still give us helpful visuals of when and where these events may have occured. For a more detailed discussion of the order of events for Good Friday and Easter, I recommend John Wenham’s excellent book Easter Enigma.
On Sunday we reviewed the story in Mark 11:7-10 of the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. The people had lined the way into Jerusalem with palm branches and their own cloaks. They were shouting and singing and celebrating. There was excitement in the air. They saw in Jesus the long awaited king who would save them from Roman oppression.
But we know something they didn’t. In less than a week, Jesus would die on a cross, because he came not to save them from the tyranny of Rome, but from the tyranny of sin. He came to save us by becoming our sacrifice for sins so we could be forgiven and reconciled to God. He came to rise again so we too could be raised from the dead someday. He rose to reign not merely as the king of Israel, but as the king of the whole world, for he is not only in the line of David but also God in the flesh.
If Israel had reason to gather to shout and sing and celebrate Jesus, how much more reason do we have to gather to shout and sing and celebrate Jesus?
But is that why we gather on Sundays? Do we gather to praise the Lord? Do we come ready to shout and sing and celebrate? Really? Is it in our minds? Is it on our hearts? The Israelites had been anticipating that day for years. Do we anticipate during the week that time when we can gather with God’s people to praise him together? Can we hardly wait? Are we excited to come together to praise our great King and Savior?
We have more reason to praise Jesus than the Israelites did. Let’s act like it as we gather this Sunday to praise our risen Savior and King.
And yet we need not wait until Sunday. Let’s get warmed up during the week. As we reflect on the cross this week, let’s shout and sing and celebrate in our personal times with the Lord. Let’s praise the Lord in our own homes as families. We have more reason to praise Jesus this week. Let’s live like it!
I have a book with a couple hundred hymns by Isaac Watts, and I found this one that goes along with Palm Sunday. We are planning to sing it this Sunday using the familiar tune to O For A Thousand Tongues To Sing (both hymns share the same meter and the music fits well). Read the words and notice their theological depth in reference to the person of Christ that leads to the call to praise him.
Hosannah To Christ
Isaac Watts
Hosannah to the royal Son
Of David’s ancient line!
His natures two, his person one,
Mysterious and divine.
The root of David here, we find,
And offspring is the same:
Eternity and time are join’d
In our Immanuel’s name
Bless’d he that comes to wretched men
With peaceful news from heav’n!
Hosannahs of the highest strain
To Christ the Lord be giv’n!
Let mortals ne’er refuse to take
The hosannah on their tongues,
Lest rocks and stones should rise and break
Their silence into songs.
In the Sermon on the Plain in Luke 6, Jesus gives us two ways to live.
One way is to live for self. We can chase after riches, fullness, laughter, and popularity. We can live to gain for ourselves, as though the world revolved around self. This is our tendency even from our youngest years – consider the toddler throwing a tantrum because he doesn’t get what he wants. To those who live this way, Jesus says: “Woe to you.”
But Jesus calls us to another way of life. He calls us to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow him. Instead of living for self, we should live for Christ. We should be willing to give up all the world chases after and become poor, hungry, weeping, hated, rejected, and ridiculed for the sake of Christ. When we live for Christ instead of ourselves, Jesus says: “Blessed are you.” But that is not all. Jesus then goes on to tell us to live for others – even those who hate us, ridicule us, and reject us. He tells us to love our enemies. We are to do good, bless, pray for, and be merciful to others. Rather than judge and condemn others, we should forgive and give generously. Live for Christ and others. Love God and people. Live with a passion for God and compassion for people.
Two ways to live. We can live for self or we can live for Christ and others. Jesus closes his sermon with four applications:
First, choose your teachers carefully. Those blind to the truth follow those blind to the truth, and they both fall into a pit. But if you are in Christ, you are no longer blind, so don’t follow those who are. When we are fully trained we will be like our teacher. If we make the lies of our culture our teacher, we will be like our culture – we will live for self. If we make Christ our teacher, we will be like Christ, willing to give of ourselves for others. So who are we listening to? What does our favorite music, movies, books, magazines, and websites teach us? What do our closest friends teach us? To live for self or for Christ? Have we chosen our teachers carefully? Do we need to make some changes?
Of course, our culture is everywhere, and we cannot help but hear the lies, but we can minimize our exposure. And when we do hear the lies, we can reject them rather than let them shape us. We must continually ask ourselves the question as we traverse this world: “Is this true?” And we must saturate ourselves with the truth of God’s Word so we can know the truth and see the lies.
Second, Jesus calls us to apply the truth to ourselves first. We may agree with Jesus that we should live for him instead of ourselves, but we have this tendency too often to apply the truth to someone else. We think: “He really needs to hear this message. I hope so-and-so is listening. I should send this post to her….” Though we may have a plank in our own eyes, we want to take the speck out of another’s eyes. Jesus calls us to look to ourselves first, to apply the message to our own lives.
Third, we need to focus on the heart. The tree determines the fruit. Our heart determines our words and actions. It would be easy to hear Jesus’ message to love others, and attempt to tinker with our words and actions. But Jesus says we need to go deeper, we need to address our hearts.
We are all born with hearts bent toward sin, bent toward self. So our first need is to get a new heart bent toward God. We need to be born again. We need Christ to come into our lives and change us if we have any hope of living for Christ and others.
Assuming we have received Jesus as our Savior and have received a new heart, we must guard our hearts. Our new heart believes the best thing is to live for Jesus. It desires to live for Jesus. With that believe and desire, we will live for Jesus. But we have been living for self for a long time. And our culture calls us constantly to live for ourselves. And so we must guard our hearts from the lies of the culture we once believed. We must guard our hearts from the sinful desires of our culture we once desired. When we don’t, lies mix with truth, sinful desires mix with desires for Christ, and we sin. That is why we still sin. Sometimes we believe the lies, desire what the lies promise, and live out the lie. What we believe is what we will desire, and what we desire is what we will do. Our heart leads to our words and actions.
And so we must also examine our hearts. We need God’s Word to discern the thoughts and intents of our hearts (Hebrews 4:12) to reveal the lies and sinful desires. We need to pray with the Psalmist: “Search me, O God, and know my heart (Psalm 139). We can’t just tinker with our words and actions. We must examine our hearts.
Finally, we must live the truth. We shouldn’t claim Jesus is our Lord if we don’t obey him. We can’t simply listen to the truth, we must live it out. If we do, we are like the man who builds on a firm foundation, whose house stands. If we don’t, we are like a man who builds without a foundation, and great is the ruin.
Jesus calls us to stop living for ourselves, and to start living for Christ and others. If we are to do that, we must choose our teachers carefully. We must apply this truth to ourselves first. We must focus on the heart – we need a new heart, we must guard our heart, and we must examine our heart. We must live out the truth.
So how do you need to respond to Jesus’ message? As you respond and live for Christ and others, you will hear our Lord say to you: “Blessed are you!”
Remember we did not declare temporary spiritual bankruptcy. Our bankruptcy is total and permanent. The only worthiness we have for entrance into God’s Kingdom is in Christ. The only worthiness we have with which to come before God is in Christ. The only worthiness we have to qualify us for ministry is in Christ. If we are to progress in any aspect of the Christian life, we must look outside ourselves and only to Christ. It is is him that the grace of God is so abundantly poured out on us.
– Jerry Bridges in Transforming Grace
During the Transfiguration recorded in Luke 9:28-36, a cloud overshadows them, and a voice says, “This is my Son, my Chosen One; listen to him!” The Father commands the disciples to listen to Jesus. We too must listen to Jesus, but how? He does not walk among us as he did then, so how do we listen to him?
Some might suggest that the words that he spoke while he was here that are recorded in Scripture – the words in red – are his words that we must listen to, but that does not go far enough. We know that the apostles and prophets wrote the entire Bible as they were led by the Holy Spirit (II Peter 1:20-21). We also know that the Spirit speaks the words of Jesus (John 16:13-14). That means that the entire Bible is the words of Jesus. When we open the Bible and read, Jesus speaks to us. We must listen.
We must stop and listen. Peter wakes up to find Jesus talking to Moses and Elijah, and he bgins to chatter on about building three tents. But is this a time to talk? Would you interrupt Jesus, Moses, and Elijah? Wouldn’t you want to hear their conversation? This is a time to stop all other thoughts, words, and actions, and just listen.
As we gather on Sunday mornings to open the Book which contains the very words of our glorious Savior, this is not a time to get up and wander about, to daydream, to think about lunch or afternoon plans. This a time to stop and listen.
As we wake up each morning to open the Book to read the very words of Jesus, we must stop all distractions, stop thinking about our plans for the day, and just listen to Jesus Himself speak to us. Stop and listen.
But we must not just stop and listen, we must also listen and respond. We cannot listen to Jesus like we often listen to a news announcer – in one ear and out the other as they say. When God speaks, we must respond. The Parable of the Sower in the prior chapter reminds us that we must not just hear the Word, but must respond (8:4-15). Jesus tells us his family are those who “hear the Word of God and do it” (8:21). We must not just hear the Word; we must do what it says (James 1:22).
So as we gather on Sunday morning to open the Book, do we come planning to not only hear but also respond? As we open the Book each morning, do we intend to respond? Do we intend to obey that command, or claim that promise, or believe that truth, or confess that sin, or follow that example? Do we plan to listen and respond?
Father, you have given us a great gift – the very words of Jesus. As we open the Book, help us to remember that we are reading the very words of God. Help us to stop. Help us to listen. Help us to respond. For your glory, we pray. Amen.
In the last post, we considered the identity of Jesus. We considered his claim to be the King and Savior of the world. We suggested that either he was the King and Savior or he was an egotistical nut. Assuming we believe his claim to be the King and Savior (as I do), how should we respond. Jesus continues in Luke 9 to tell us.
“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (v23). We are to come after him, to follow him, and this following includes self-denial.
I have a card on my computer which says: “Oh yeah. I keep forgetting. It’s not about me. It is about Him.” Self-denial is living out this card, not living for myself but rather living for him. If he is my King, I must live for him. If he is my Savior, I owe him my life. How might this play out in practical terms?
It means first of all, that I deny my life (v23-24). Verse 23 says we should take up our cross. The disciples knew this was an invitation to die. As Jesus died for us, we should be willing to die for him. And countless Christians through the centuries and around the world have given their lives for Jesus and continue to do so today.
Yet, he says to take up your cross daily. This takes us beyond a willingness to literally die to the idea of dying to ourselves; that is, not living for ourselves, but rather giving of ourselves each day for him and indeed for others. Because it is not about me, I can set aside my agenda to serve Christ by serving people. Verse 24 goes on to say that if I seek to save my life (live for myself), I will lose. But if I die t myself, giving of myself, I will find true life.
Secondly, I must deny nt nly my life, but my stuff (v25). Yes, I can enjoy what God gives me, but I don’t live for it. I am willing to give it away. I can give to others rather than hoard my resources seeking to gain the world.
Thirdly, I must deny my reputation (v26). Not ashamed, I must be willing to lose my reputation for Jesus by telling others about him. People may laugh, scoff, or ridicule, but it is not about me, it is about him. It is not about lifting up my name, but his.
Jesus is our King and Savior. It is not about me. It is about him. May God help us live this out more and more each day.
Brian J. Mikul 