Therefore you too have grief now;

but I will see you again,

and your heart will rejoice,

and no one will take your joy away from you.

John 16:22

It’s Saturday morning. Jesus would still be in the grave… Yesterday around 12pm darkness fell upon the earth (Luke 23:44-45). The sun was obscured and the veil (Exodus 26:31-35, Matthew 27:51) of the temple was torn into and the rocks quaked. Then by 3pm He breathed His last.

Therefore when Jesus had received the sour wine,

He said, “It is finished!” 

And He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.

John 19:30

Around 3pm, He was removed from that Roman cross. His body beaten beyond recognition, His hands and feet with holes bore through them by the nails of this crucifixion, and His side pierced through by a Roman spear, His heart now empty of blood and water.

Joseph from Arimathea came and requested from Pilate the body of the Teacher, the Word made flesh… the One who was crucified as the world’s Passover, even though the world did not understand.

By 6pm Friday, Joseph would have Jesus tenderly and respectfully wrapped in linen and laid in the tomb. The women (Luke 23:55-56) would have carefully and weepingly, prepared the spices and perfumes to anoint His body. All doing as they honored Him with what they thought was their last opportunity to do so…

Then they left Him… I am sure in silence… each lost in their own memories of the most amazing human being they had ever met… and they knew their lives would never be the same… ever again.

By this time I am sure the others have heard of the suicide of Judas, the denial of Peter, the scattering of them all… all except John and the women who stayed and followed and witnessed it all.

I wonder if this day… they fought amongst each other. Each blaming the other for His death. I wonder if they pointed fingers and went through the event over and over and over in their heads thinking of all the ways they could have, should have, stopped what happened. I wonder if punches were thrown in their grief… human broken hearts in the flesh respond in such strange ways to great tragedy…

I can’t imagine the heart of Mary as she watched her Son that day.

I can’t imagine the despair of Peter as he carried his denial of the One he swore to follow even to his own death.

I wonder if they remembered Jesus words to one another, His last command to them and chose to obey Him here and love and comfort one another…

This is My commandment,

that you love one another,

just as I have loved you.

John 15:12

I wonder if they just sat in silence… numb to the pain by the shock of the events and the haste in which it all happened. One moment they are with Him, He is washing their feet, teaching them, sharing a meal with them, then the next He is taken… beaten… nailed… lifeless… buried in a tomb.

How?

Why?

Their worlds must have been spinning. Their emotions reeling. Their hearts melting. Their strength drained.

That Friday evening they went home… that Sabbath… they left His cross… His tomb… and they rested according to the commandment. They went back to what they knew… they went back to the Law.

Many of them were hid away behind locked door (John 20:19) afraid the Jews would come after them next… Yet some how, some where, John had found Peter (John 20:2). I imagine their were no accusations in the words of John toward Peter, no condemnation, no spite or blame.

I imagine John obeying his Teacher… and choosing instead to love Peter. I imagine John reminding Peter of all that Jesus had taught them. I imagine John telling Peter that the best way they can honor their Teacher is to continue to live out His life. I imagine John wrapping his arms around Peter while this broken man wept. I imagine John telling Peter of the rocks crying out, of the veil tearing, of the darkness, of the fear of those who once mocked the man on the cross having their mouths shut by the terror of the events that came at the moment He breathed His last…

I imagine Peter and John trying to figure out the how and why… going over in their heads everything He said and did… remembering the promises… the Scriptures… the prophets.

I imagine the women doing the same… led by Mary, the mother of Jesus, all the ponderings of her heart causing her to wonder, could this really be the end?

Yes Saturday, the Sabbath day, Jesus was still in the grave.

But Sunday is coming…

Jesus spoke these things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You, even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life. This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do. Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.

John 17:1-5

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When Jesus had spoken these words, He went forth with His disciples over the ravine of the Kidron, where there was a garden, in which He entered with His disciples. Now Judas also, who was betraying Him, knew the place, for Jesus had often met there with His disciples. Judas then, having received the Roman cohort andofficers from the chief priests and the Pharisees, came there with lanterns and torches and weapons. So Jesus,knowing all the things that were coming upon Him, went forth and said to them, “Whom do you seek?” They answered Him, “Jesus the Nazarene.” He said to them, “I am…”

John 18:1-5

The disciples had spent the last three years walking with a man who passed through the hands of those who sought to push Him over cliffs with ease. They had watched Him walk on water. They had seen Him calm the storm and raging seas with a word. They had seen Him cast out legions of demons, make blind men see, lame men walk, dead people rise up and breathe and speak as though nothing had ever been wrong with them ever.

They even experienced Him granting them some of His power and authority and through His name they themselves cast out demons and made blind men see… I smile as I even remember a time that they asked Jesus if they should call down fire from heaven to consume some men who were not treating Jesus with the respect they thought was due Him (Luke 9:53-55).

These disciples thought they had hit the big time. Jesus was the Messiah. The Man. The One who would kick the door of Caesar in and remove the yoke of Rome’s bondage and destroy any nation that tried to put them in bondage again… and they were on His team. They were fighting over who would be the greatest in His kingdom… and I wonder if Jesus sat back as He listened to their bickering if He inwardly smiled at their innocent ignorance or if He shook His head in slight annoyance. “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing” must have been a thought that continuously ran through His mind.

I would think that the disciples were convinced that this Man was invincible, unstoppable, and they probably were so stuck on these thoughts that they never even heard Him when He spoke of His death… they probably even laughed at it… considering this as their Lord being “overly humble”. I mean really who could kill a man who could walk on water and raise others from the dead?

This was the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Right?

Can you even begin to imagine the confusion, the despair, the fear, that entered the souls of these men as they watched Him walk away with a cohort of Roman soldiers and all the chief priests and Pharisees… with victory in their eyes… and with something they had never seen before in the eyes of the One they called Lord.

There were, to be sure, ways of coping with the death of a teacher, or even a leader. The picture of Socrates was available, in the wider world, as a model of unjust death nobly borne. The category of ‘martyr’ was available, within Judaism, for someone who stood up to pagans… The category of failed but still revered Messiah, however, did not exist. A Messiah who died at the hands of the pagans, instead of winning [God’s] battle against them, was a deceiver…

~ N.T. Wright

Was it over?

How could this Man… this Jesus… be a deceiver?

There had been so many before Him, so many who claimed to be the one, but all were dead. All proven to be deceivers by their death and defeat… but there had never been one like Him. They were so sure He was the One.  So very sure.

Yet now there He is… not even appearing as a man… hanging there from a Roman cross. Dying just like all the others who claimed to be yet were not.

Those who once cried “Hosanna” cried “Crucify” and there He is broken, beaten, bleeding, bound, betrayed, belittled, and bending beneath the weight of their sin that He is carrying in every stripe on His body.

“Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing”

Good Friday?

Really?

Three days and three nights?

The question constantly arises: If the Lord was really crucified on Friday and rose again on Sunday, how could that have encompassed three days and three nights? The Gospel accounts indicate that the Lord was crucified on Friday at 9:00 a.m. and taken off the cross at 3:00 p.m. His body was prepared for burial and interred at sundown the same day, which was the beginning of the Festival of Unleavened Bread. The Lord then arose on Sunday morning after sunup. According to the modern way of counting, this spans barely two days. Yet that time period seems to disagree with Jesus’ earlier prediction: “For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matt. 12:40).

The prophecy can be understood when we examine the Jewish way of counting days and nights. We must recall that the Jewish day always starts at sunset, so that Friday really begins on Thursday evening (a fact that is reflected in the language of Genesis – “the evening and the morning” are the first day). The second day then begins at sundown on Friday and continues through the daytime on Saturday. Finally, Sunday begins at sundown on Saturday and stretches through Saturday night and the daylight hours of Sunday, making the third day. And since the Jews counted any portion of daylight as a full day, then Friday morning through Sunday morning would have been seen as three complete days.

~ Zola Levitt

As of right now, according to my central time zone, He would be on that cross.

“Today is Maundy Thursday. The name comes from the Latin mandatum, the first word in the Latin rendering of John 13:34, “A new commandment (mandatum novum) I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” This commandment was given by Jesus on the Thursday before his crucifixion. So Maundy Thursday is the “Thursday of the Commandment.”

Excerpt From: Piper, John. “Love to the Uttermost : Devotional Readings for Holy Week.” Desiring God.

Yesterday our Savior shared with His disciples that His soul was troubled. It’s hard to imagine that Christ, the God-Man, ever had a moment of conflicting emotion… but here in the Word, from His very own lips we see that He did. He knows what it means to have inward commotion going on… He knows how it feels to lose the calmness of our mind. Tarasso. Troubled. Our Jesus knows it well.

Today our Jesus will have met with His disciples to share the Passover meal… He will meet with them and He will show them that the greatest among them is the one who humbles himself to serve another. It would be this night that Jesus, the Teacher, the Master, the Rabbi, the Lord… would lay aside His outer garment and get down on His knees and wash the feet of the disciples… even the one who would betray Him… the one that Jesus already knew would betray Him… because Jesus sees right into our hearts. Our intentions and secrets and motives and desires are not hidden from His sight… ever.

Even when He sees the wickedness within us… He willingly washes our feet. If we sit before Him… because He knows that we can never get ourselves clean.

So He came to Simon Peter.

He said to Him, “Lord, do You wash my feet?” 

Jesus answered and said to him, 

“What I do you do not realize now,

but you will understand hereafter.” 

Peter said to Him, “Never shall You wash my feet!”

Jesus answered him, 

“If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.”

John 13:6-8

Have you been washed?

Washed in the blood of the Lamb?

Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing power?

Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?

Are you fully trusting in His grace this hour?

Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?

Are you washed in the blood,
In the soul cleansing blood of the Lamb?
Are your garments spotless? Are they white as snow?
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?

Are you walking daily by the Savior’s side?
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?
Do you rest each moment in the Crucified?
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?

Lay aside the garments that are stained with sin,

And be washed in the blood of the Lamb; 

There’s a fountain flowing for the soul unclean,

O be washed in the blood of the Lamb!

After Jesus washed their feet… after Judas fled the scene… Jesus gets serious.

Jesus answered, “Will you lay down your life for Me?

John 13:38

Peter claims he will lay down his life for Jesus, but Peter has no clue about what he is saying. He claims something he knows nothing about… but he will get the opportunity to see the true condition of his heart. His good intentions simply will not meet his ability of execution.

However, Jesus already knows this as well. Knowing the betrayal by Judas, knowing the denial by Peter, knowing the doubting by Thomas, knowing the scattered disciples hiding in fear behind a locked door… Jesus looked them all in the face and said…

“If you love Me,

you will keep My commandments.”

John 14:15

This is My commandment,

that you love one another,

just as I have loved you.

John 15:12

Jesus has loved us in our ugly. He has loved us in our fear. He has loved us in our big talking. He has loved us in our days of doubting. He has loved us in our hiding, and in our running, and in our fighting, and in our bickering, and in our grandeur seeking, and in high and mighty thinking, and in our moments of finally getting it.

And He tells us… love one another, just as I have loved you.

So the first question is, Will you let Him wash you?

The second question is, Will you lay down your life for Him?

The third question is, Will you keep His commandments?

The fourth question is, Will you love one another as He has loved you?

Think precious one…

Are you walking daily by the Savior’s side?
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?
Do you rest each moment in the Crucified?
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?

Tomorrow is Maundy Thursday. Tomorrow is when we remember the Last Supper. We remember the washing of the disciples feet by their King…

Today we remember that Jesus knew He was to die… He knew He was born to die.

“Now My soul has become troubled;

and what shall I say, ‘Father, save Me from this hour’?

But for this purpose I came to this hour. 

Father, glorify Your name.” 

Then a voice came out of heaven:

“I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.” 

So the crowd of people who stood by

and heard it were saying that it had thundered;

others were saying, “An angel has spoken to Him.” 

Jesus answered and said, 

“This voice has not come for My sake,

but for your sakes. 

Now judgment is upon this world;

now the ruler of this world will be cast out. 

And I, if I am lifted up from the earth,

will draw all men to Myself.” 

But He was saying this to indicate

the kind of death by which He was to die.

John 12:27-33

Jesus will go to the cross.

The kind of death that He shall die will be one of the cross.

Jesus came not to just save the Jews, but He came to save the whole world.

We discover through the book of Romans, that both Jew and Gentile stand guilty before our Creator God. The Jew is guilty of transgressing the Law, of manipulating the Law, of adding to the Law, of trying to work around the Law… and the Gentile is guilty by their suppression of the truth on which is the Law. Guilty. Jew and Gentile stand condemned before a Holy God. Both being dead in sin. The obviousness of their deadness being seen in and by their suppression and rebellion to Truth.

Jesus came to die for both Jew and Gentile…

We see this even displayed in the death that He would die.

He would not be merely condemned by the Jews and stoned by their Law… leaving all guilt on their hand… but He would be condemned by the Jews… and then judged by the laws of the Gentile.

He would be sentenced to death both by Jew and Gentile.

Both would carry the blood of Jesus, King of the Jews, on their hands. Both would carry the guilt of putting to death the Son of God, the One who was Fully Man and Fully God, the Word made flesh that came to dwell among them, to live to know them, to suffer to be able to sympathize with them, to be tempted to be able to understand them, and then to die to save them.

This day… many moons ago, the Savior of the world, the Lamb who was to be slain… said His soul had become troubled within Him… our God, our Creator, our Lord… His soul became troubled.

Troubled is tarasso in the Greek and it means:

to agitate, trouble (a thing, by the movement of its parts to and fro)

to cause one inward commotion, take away his calmness of mind, disturb his equanimity

to disquiet, make restless

to stir up 

to trouble to render anxious or distressed

1. to strike one’s spirit with fear and dread

to perplex the mind of one by suggesting scruples or doubts

Then tomorrow He will wash His disciples feet… even the feet of the very one who would betray Him.

Reverence Him… reverence Him with trembling and awe.