Why is That Man Crying?

Why would He be crying? His entry into Jerusalem was the first-century equivalent of a ticker-tape parade. He was surrounded by adoring multitudes, many thousands who accompanied Him on the two-mile trek from Bethany into the holy city, and many more thousands who streamed out of the city to welcome Him.

They cheered and worshiped and sang Scripture songs to Him: Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord (Mark 11:9). They paved His way into the city with palm branches and cloaks, just as their ancestors did nearly 200 years before in honor of the Jewish hero Judas Maccabeus.

So why the tears? And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it (Luke 19:41). Sure, Jesus had wept before, actually only weeks before, at the tomb of His friend Lazarus. But that had been quieter, self-contained. This time the sobs wracked His body, this time He wailed in anguish.

 

But why? Why, when He was, at that moment, the most popular man in Palestine?

Jesus knew that the adulation of the crowd might have been a mile wide, but it was only an inch deep. The cheering multitudes wanted free food—loaves and fishes multiplied —but not the Bread of Life. They wanted free healthcare—diseases healed and demons cast out—but not the healing of their souls. They wanted Rome off their backs, but didn’t want to bend the knee to the one true King.

Jesus the Suffering Servant wept for their lost opportunities. Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes (Luke 19:42).  But Jesus the righteous Judge pronounced a sentence on the city and the people who rejected Him: For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation. (Luke 19:43-44).

Only forty years later, Titus’ army finally overran the city, and Jerusalem was destroyed. The Jewish historian Josephus says over a million people died in the slaughter.

When Jesus wept over Jerusalem, He had a lot on His mind. He is no shallow King, buoyed by the fickle praise of a rebellious people. He is the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world, and He had His work to do.

My Father's Voice

My father died at home, eaten up with cancer. The final week of his life he was in and out of consciousness, so he spoke very little. But the last words he ever said to me have lived in my heart for all these years.

I had come home from junior high school, slamming the front door, and bounding up the stairs to his bedroom. Dad’s eyes remained closed but he turned his face toward me, and said four words: “Hi, Boy.” And then very softly, “My favorite.” For an adopted child watching the only father he had ever known slowly slip away, those words meant the world to me.

  

Sometimes I try to imagine how Jesus felt as a man, particularly in His relationship to His Father. Of course as a sinful man, I can't really feel what my sinless Savior felt. But still, I like to try, because it humbles me, makes me love and admire Him more, and drives me deeper into His word.

As we near Holy Week, when His earthly life came to its terrible and glorious conclusion, I thought back on the start of Jesus’ public life, His baptism, and I wondered.

He had lived His thirty years in absolute obedience to God’s law. He never strayed, always did and said and thought what was right. What was it like for Him to join the crowd that flocked out into the wilderness to be baptized by John?  When John addressed this rough group of sinners, he didn't pull any punches: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” (Luke 3:7). I picture our sinless Jesus standing there among them, patiently waiting His turn in the water.

Did He, in His humanity, ever wonder if He was on the right track? Was He conscious from earliest memory of His Father’s presence, or were there times He felt terribly alone? He trusted, obeyed, and walked forward for thirty years. But I wonder, in those long days of childhood, adolescence, and young manhood, if His Father’s voice might have been silent or distant. I think what happened on the day of His baptism meant the world to Jesus.

Can you imagine that moment when John pulled Him up out of the Jordan, His hair and beard streaming, His eyes blinking away river water?  Oh, what a joy it must have been for Him, as the voice He loved above all others spoke so proudly from heaven: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17).

The Loan of Children

My wife and I just spent time with our older son and his wife. Soon to be a father for the fourth time himself, we had a short but blessedly full visit with him and his family that left me reflective on life and parenting and eternity.

Both of my sons provoke this response in me. They are both men, husbands, and fathers who have  personalities and preferences, gifts and skills, that did not come from me or my wife. How is that possible?

How is it that our children end up being people who exceed us and delight us and bewilder us? I guess it’s because they are only ours on loan in the first place.

When they’re born, their whole world is you. You know every moment. You watch them in their sleep, you look in on them when they’re playing, you see them when they never see you. Like a circle within a circle, their world is entirely contained in yours. When they were small, I came into their rooms every night and prayed over them while they were sleeping. They never knew.

The High Cost of High-Handedness

When you break God’s law without meaning to, what should happen? A couple days ago my wife and I read the answer to that question in Numbers 15. God told Moses what sacrifices to offer when the nation or an individual sins unintentionally (vv. 22, 27).

The Lord laid out a path to forgiveness for unintentional sins. He promised that when the priest brought the prescribed offerings, “the congregation…shall be forgiven” (v. 25) and the individual “shall be forgiven” (v. 28). We know this is a picture of the work that Jesus, our Great High Priest, does for His people (see Hebrews 9:11-14).

But there is an exception to God’s provision of a sacrifice for sins. “But the person who does anything with a high hand… reviles the Lord, and that person shall be cut off from among the people” (v. 30, ESV).  That’s what the Hebrew literally says: a high hand. The NIV and NASB use the term “defiantly,” and the KJV and NKJV translate the words “presumptuously.”

So in ancient Israel, if you sinned but humbled yourself, God provided a way for you to be forgiven. But if your sin was accompanied by a “high hand,” if you basically said to God, talk to the hand!, you were cut off from the nation.

Immediately after God’s instruction about “high-handedness,” a man was stoned to death for gathering sticks on the Sabbath (Numbers 15:32-36). Even more chilling, when Korah and other leaders in Israel demanded the same recognition and authority as Aaron the priest, the Lord opened up the earth to swallow them and their families (see Number 16).

Scripture repeatedly tells us how the Lord hates pride but loves humility.

• These are the ones I look on with favor: those who are humble and contrite in spirit, and who tremble at my word (Isaiah 66:2b, NIV).
• The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. (Psalm 34:18).
• Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:3).
• God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble (James 4:6b).

 What does it cost us to humble ourselves? Or maybe a better question: What will it cost us if we do not?

Jesus in One Sentence

I just started reading J. Oswald Sanders' classic The Incomparable Christ. One of the reasons I bought the book is that J. I. Packer wrote the foreword. Packer, author of multiple classics like Knowing God and In My Place Condemned He Stood, is a great man, a great thinker, and a great writer.

Even so, I was stunned when I read this one, beautifully crafted sentence by Dr. Packer on page 9 of the foreword. It's even better if you read it out loud, and best if you read it out loud to someone you love.

What the gospels show us can be summed up like this: Without forfeiting or reducing either His divine identity or His divine powers, in full and exact obedience to the Father's will throughout, and through the enabling agency of the Holy Spirit at every turn, the second person of the Godhead, the Son of God who is God the Son, became a fetus growing in Mary's womb; was born and nursed like any other baby; passed through infancy, boyhood, and adolescence into manhood; knew from the first moment of his self-awareness as a newborn that He was the Father's Son, who would always know and must always do what the Father directed, and did so unfailingly; blended meekness with majesty, seriousness with joyousness, satirical humor with sensitive gentleness, forthrightness against sin with vulnerable love to sinners in a unique perfection of character; modeled wisdom and humility, self-control and integrity, independence in face of men and prayer dependence on his Father, in a way and to a degree never seen or imagined before; and finally endured six hours of supreme agony on the cross, giving His life a ransom for many, bearing away the sin of the world, undergoing the Godforsakenness that we sinners deserved. 

Okay, I didn't say it was a short sentence. Also, I'd better include his next one, since it focuses on the Resurrection: Then His resurrection displayed His divinity and demonstrated His victory to His disciples, who from then on linked Him with the Father in their worship and prayers.

Apart from the Bible, no human words can really do our Savior justice. But this comes pretty close. It makes me admire our Jesus so much. 

He Never Apologized

"My dad never said he was sorry. He would fly off the handle, and sometimes he hit us kids or my mom. But he never apologized.”

“My wife is a wonderful woman, but she is never wrong. It’s always someone else’s fault.”

One of the marks of maturity, especially Christian maturity, is admitting when you’re wrong, confessing when you’ve sinned, apologizing when you’ve hurt someone. And we all know people who never really apologize. Oh, they probably would claim they apologize. But their “confessions” are wrapped up in self-righteousness and pride.

Here are some examples of pseudo-apologies:

• I’m sorry if I offended you. Translation: I’m not really conceding I did anything wrong. But since you seem to be upset, I’ll say some words to shut you up.
• I’m sorry you feel offended, but I didn’t mean it. Translation: You’re overly sensitive. I did nothing wrong. What I’m sorry about is your whining.
• I’m sorry, but you know I’ve been under a lot of pressure lately. Translation: I’m not responsible. Actually it’s really your fault for getting in my way when I’m so pressured.
• I’m sorry, but let me list all the ways you’ve messed up lately, and all the grievances I have against you. Translation: I’m a saint compared to you. You have no business bringing anything up to me when you're such a failure.

A real apology is an act of humility. When you or I really apologize, we’re admitting we’ve messed up, that we are sinners who can and do hurt other people, and that we’re in need of change and forgiveness.

So anyway, I was reading J. Oswald Sanders’ The Incomparable Christ, and here’s what he said about Jesus: “No word He spoke needed to be modified or withdrawn, because He never spoke inadvisedly or fell into the evil of exaggeration….He never apologized for word or action. And yet, is it not true that the ability to apologize is one of the elements of true greatness? It is the small-souled man who will not stoop to apologize. But Christ performed no action, spoke no word that required apology.”

People who are “never wrong” are insufferable, prideful, and hurtful. But Jesus never came across as a haughty jerk. He was always kind, humble, and yet holy and perfect. So He’s the only one who never needs to apologize. The rest of us need to get better at it, and the closer we get to Him, the more we will want to.

He's Taking It All Back

Why did Jesus die? Short answer: to give His life as a "ransom for many" (Mark 10:45). That has personal meaning to many of us who admire and love and follow Christ, of course.

But the impact of our Savior's death and resurrection means far more. Global, eternal, triumphant, emphatic, exalted, victory! I just read a great article from the wonderful blog  Rebecca Writes.

Here's a short quote, but honestly, you should read the whole thing. It is thrilling, and exalts our Savior so wonderfully. Click on the quote, and rejoice.

Christ is taking it all back. The fullness of time began with Christ’s death, and the fullness will be realized completely when those united with him come into their glory as children of God. Their glory becomes the glory of all of creation, and this exalts the one who died in order to unite all things.