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
- 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.