CALVARY CHAPEL CHINO HILLS·MONDAY, MARCH 26, 2018
“As Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, He took the twelve disciples aside privately and told them what was going to happen to Him. ‘Listen,’ He said, ‘we’re going up to Jerusalem, where the Son of Man will be betrayed to the leading priests and the teachers of religious law. They will sentence Him to die. Then they will hand Him over to the Romans to be mocked, flogged with a whip, and crucified. But on the third day He will be raised from the dead.'” -Matthew 20:17-19
We’ve all been asked the question: “I have some good news and some bad news, which one do you want first?” Depending upon our emotional make up each of us will make our own choice. But with God there is no choosing between what is good or bad. His decisions are always good and they are not based upon an emotional preference like ours. God deals in the realm of facts and in His omniscience works all things together for the good.
Jesus took His disciples aside and told them to “listen” as He began to tell them about all that would soon transpire. He said, “We’re going up to Jerusalem, where the Son of Man will be betrayed to the leading priests and the teachers of religious law. They will sentence Him to die. Then they will hand Him over to the Romans to be mocked, flogged with a whip, and crucified.” Did you get that? Jesus is telling them the future in advance. He is revealing to them details and realities that have never been known to man before. He not only tells them about it, He is leading them right into it. Jesus is giving them an overview of the coming events of Passion Week from a bird’s eye perspective. The events will unfold exactly as He has said and what looks like the darkest hour is actually a perfectly choreographed plan that had been in the making from eternity past.
What was it that kept Jesus, God in His humanity, moving toward the Cross? It was His reliance upon God the Father. Jesus informed His disciples, “But on the third day He will be raised from the dead.” He looked beyond the suffering, past the Cross to His resurrected glory. What He was about to complete would provide for us the forgiveness of sin and eternal life by His resurrection. Jesus would become the firstborn from the dead – the first resurrected man to die no more. I am comforted by this because Jesus is alive and lives forever.
We rejoice over the realities of this Passion Week in history because it was then that God secured our future eternal life with Him. Jesus Christ is alive, therefore, without doubt or fear, we also will arise, for in Him is life forevermore.
Follower of Jesus, does the fact that eternity is just around the corner affect how you live today? Until then, live your life here and now with eternity in sight.
Pastor Jack