Ooh, good morning everybody. Sign up, wow, this service, killing it on the good mornings. Just want to keep encouraging to sign up for art of marriage, art of marriage and want to make sure you're getting your good Friday tickets, your Easter Sunday tickets, there are 96,176 people that live in one town of our church that don't have a relationship with Jesus and they are likely to be open to going to church on Easter weekend. So please, please, please come and invite a friend.
Maggie, you got a picture you can throw up there? I'm gonna date myself a little bit here, but this week in preparing to kick off Easter Sunday, I found myself reflecting on the 1970s, which is hard to believe, sitcom 3's company. I'm not sure how many old people like me are out there, but if you were around one 3's company, and I was a very young person. Just so you know, just be clear.
When 3's company first came out, it was quite controversial. Culturally, we were a little bit like the frog in the pot of boiling water, right? Now 3's company would be airing on Nickelodeon. But then, like, this was a taboo-breaking television show.
The premise was that Jack Tripper played by John Ritter, and I never realized how close those were until I wrote them. Jack Tripper was looking to rent a room, and he met Chrissy and Janet, who were friends, looking to rent out the second bedroom in their Santa Monica apartment. So Jack moved in. The relationship was purely platonic, but in the 1970s, these sensors didn't like it, and neither did their landlords, the ropers.
And so in order to get them to allow Jack to live with the girls, Jack had to pretend that he was gay. And now with that as background, right? Now you know the plot line of just about every single episode of 3's company, and I am really not exaggerating. Every single episode of the show is just built around a misunderstanding of one kind or another.
Every single show is about a misunderstanding, mostly about their living situation. Assumptions are incorrectly made, or conversations, or misheard, or outcomes are wrongly perceived, and at some level then, because of the misunderstanding, anger or jealousy, but often, because it's a sitcom, hilarity, wouldn't sue. Now, you might rightfully so be asking yourself, I thought this was an Easter series. Like, what is this?
What is he talking about? Well, in sitcoms, which is, and that one is the preeminent misunderstanding sitcom, but misunderstandings are the groundwork for humor. In fact, I would argue check out maybe other than Seinfeld, which was a show about nothing. At the heart of almost every sitcom is a misunderstanding.
It's just a new episode and a new misunderstanding, and they're usually pretty funny. But when it comes to real life, right, misunderstandings, especially the kind that don't get on wound in 30 minutes, misunderstandings often aren't all that funny. In fact, they tend to be quite serious and often deadly. In fact, if you want some interesting history, go look up what began World War I, or made even more recently the Iraq War, misunderstandings.
And finally, misunderstandings about Jesus, who he was, what he said, what he did, and why he came. Those misunderstandings, they wind up not only being deadly, but generationally and eternally in scope and remmification. Church history, world history, shows us how dangerous it is when people misunderstand the cross of Easter. In ignorance, simplistic and biased understanding of the events of Easter and Jesus's death have resulted.
This is factual stuff. They have resulted, over time, in an accusation, against an entire people group. It's actually called, it has a name, it's called the DSI Charge, more commonly stated as, the Jews kill Jesus. Early church fathers, like Melito of Sardis, in the second century, he would use language relative to that story.
It was so sharp, it portrayed Israel as having killed its own Lord. And then later, John Christosum in the fourth century, he preached with such fierce anti-Jewish rhetoric, it deepened the hostility and suspicion towards the Jews in the Christian imagination. This misunderstanding, and that's not necessarily the word there, but this misunderstanding helped justify hatred, exclusion, humiliation, forced conversion, segregation, mob violence, expulsion, and the recurring prosecution of Jewish people across many centuries of Christian history. The fact that US Holocaust Memorial Museum identifies this false charge, that well, it's the Jews that are responsible for this, as one of the anti-Jewish prejudices that have been reinforced through historic Christian teaching that fed the hostility that culminated in the Holocaust.
This misunderstanding is still alive today. And today, it continues to fuel anti-Semitic forces and evil around the globe. This misunderstanding, for each of us in the room, also as a very personal and very profound and very eternal consequence. You see, if you believe that Jesus was the victim of circumstances that holy week, that Judas got the better of them, that it was the fault of the Jewish religious leaders or the Roman authorities, perhaps you were brought up to believe that the death of Jesus, well, really, it's just a tragic accident, right?
It was all related to horrible circumstance or mistake, that there's somebody that could be blamed for the misunderstanding. If you were brought up to believe that, it will cause you to draw some very bad conclusions about God himself and ultimately about you. Because, because if the cross was merely something that was inflicted upon Jesus, then if you follow that to its end, God looks pretty weak, doesn't he? History suddenly seems to lose its purpose and becomes random.
Evil, you would begin to think, could win. And your suffering loses any kind of context and it begins to seem as meaningless and out of control. But, if Jesus wasn't trapped by the events, if he wasn't cornered by Rome, if he wasn't outmaneuvered by Judas, if Jesus wasn't surprised by the Sanhedrin, if instead he was moving towards the cross with full awareness, total authority, and settled resolve, then all of those things need to be rethought. Things about how I see Jesus.
Things about how I see me. Then the cross really isn't a disaster that need to be explained away, but a mission to be understood. Easter isn't God scrambling to recover from the events of Friday. Easter is the revelation that Friday was the plan all along.
And that means when we come to the final week of Jesus's life, we are not watching a man lose control. We are watching a savior take it, which is where we get our series title from, the final countdown. I asked Isaac if he would mind preparing a clock for this countdown and in typical Isaac Davis fashion, he exceeded every expectation I could have had for what this clock would look like, which is over here running and ticking down as we speak. This clock, we as a staff of made a decision, this clock will run from now until our Good Friday services that is counting down to Good Friday evening.
If you have meetings here in the next couple of weeks, if you're in here for any of the support groups for covering ministries, this clock will be sitting here running. As a constant reminder that a clock is ticking, that the countdown has begun. If the events of the final week of Jesus's life were not random, right, and they weren't. And we see that Jesus was actually in control of what was going on all along and he was.
Then these things reveal not chaos, but a countdown, which Jesus wouldn't all great. And I'll show you that and ultimately control. The question is, a countdown to what? And we're gonna get to that as the series culminates on Easter morning.
But for now, here is what all of us know experientially about countdowns. Because when the clock begins to wind down, feelings begin to get supercharged. In Guatemala, I hope you'll come with us this year on one of our weekly trips in July to the Guatemala city communities that mostly survive through the garbage dumps. I hope you'll come and build some homes and love on some families with us.
But in Guatemala at night, we play the game, it's a game called Catch Phrase. Do you all know the game Catch Phrase? Ton of fun. Essentially what we do is we sit in a big circle, we split into two teams and your goal is to get all of the players on your team to say this word that had been revealed to you on this little handheld catch phrase device.
Once your team guesses it, you hand the device to the player next to you who's on the opposite team. The thing that makes the game fun and pressure pack is that all of this is happening while the device, the clock on this device is ticking out loud. And it's time winds down, it ticks faster and faster and faster. Ticking, right, as the ticking gets faster, you tend to see what's in a player come out.
Some of us, and I've been playing Catch Phrase for 20 years in Guatemala. Some of us just melt under the pressure, right? And I've played Catch Phrase with many of you over the last 20 years, and I kind of know where you will fit in these. But some of us just melt right under the pressure.
As soon as it starts going faster, we can't think, we freeze up, we choke, right? Others, and I've watched this, others just, they'll wait for it to get fast. Cause they just love the pressure of the moment, right? It brings out their best, they raise their game to a new level.
You know what others do when the countdown when the clock starts ticking quick? They cheat. They will literally, if you bend their, you know, this is true, they will literally put their hands behind their backs so the person next to them can't hand the ticking time bomb off. Countdowns tend to reveal character.
They do. You ever notice how a countdown changes the way you feel about things? If the countdown is moving towards something joyful, if the countdown is to a wedding or a vacation or the birth of a child, I mean, there's excitement in the air, right? The clock almost feels electric as it moves, it's way to zero.
Every tick means you're getting closer to something that you can't wait to experience. But if the countdown is moving towards something painful, the clock feels very different, doesn't it? If it's a surgery, if it's a funeral, if it's that hard conversation, a diagnosis, a deadline that you dread. Literally the very same ticking that could bring excitement in one moment brings huge amounts of anxiety in another.
This is where we enter the story of Jesus in this Easter series. As he is about to set the clock ticking. I want to begin to clear up the confusion. It was not as though a Messiah headed for a cross had not been predicted, it had been.
Heck, even from humanity's earliest moments in the scriptures and the opening chapters of Genesis, the first book in the Bible, in the beginning, shortly after Anamene first sin and bring the darkness of death into the life of the garden. God speaks to evil incarnate and says, I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers, he will crush your head and you will strike his heel. The seed of the woman, God says. That phrase is unusual because throughout scripture, offspring is almost always described as through the man.
So this hints at some kind of a miraculous birth, ultimately a virgin birth. The serpent's bruising of Jesus' heel speaks of Jesus' very real suffering, pain, injury. Jesus would be wounded, struck, and crucified, but it would not be his final defeat. Now, maybe no, there's, there are literally hundreds of prophecies of the Messiah that was to come in the Old Testament and many of them speak of his suffering and his death.
Isaiah, right? Israel's great prophet. 700 years before Jesus shows up, he wrote of the coming Messiah that he was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering and familiar with pain, but he was pierced for our transgressions and he was crushed for our inequities. So our story begins in the New Testament as described by the historian Luke.
Luke was a highly educated Greek physician. Luke was not a disciple of Jesus. He never met Jesus in his earthly ministry, but he was so moved by the stories of Jesus and those that were following him that he set out to write what he described as a very orderly account of them. Luke, who is now described as a first-rate historian, tells us after writing the first nine chapters of his gospel, which were all about Jesus' public ministry, Luke now moves to in chapter nine, he moves to something profound, a moment that theologians would call the crux moment in the life and ministry of Jesus.
Now, many of you have heard this story. After several years of this public ministry, this ministry of miracles and healings and teachings, Jesus asks his disciples a pretty famous question. He says, gentlemen, who do the crowds say that I am? Many of you know that they gave him an honest answer, essentially that, well, most people think that you are a prophet of some kind.
Then Jesus asks the eternal question, the one that you and I still have to answer this day. He looks and he says, but what about you? What about you? Who do you say I am?
And now here comes the crux moment in the life of Jesus. Peter answered God's Messiah. And with those few words, everything in the entirety of humanity, but specifically in this book of Luke changes. With that, the clock begins to tick.
Immediately following Peter's confessions, Jesus stops performing massive public signs to prove who he is. Instead, his ministry changes. He begins what are called the Passion Predictions. He stops from that moment on trying to convince crowds and he starts trying to prepare his disciples for his death.
This confession, from this point on, the rest of the entirety of Luke's book, which goes into 20 plus chapters, it's all about the death of Jesus. This confession of Peter's, it acts as the prerequisite for what scholars call the travel narrative. Ten chapters, really the rest of Luke's reporting, are all about the journey, Jesus' journey, from that moment towards Jerusalem and his death. The final countdown has begun.
And you see it nowhere clearer than in the profound, profound verse from Luke. One of my favorite verses in all of the scripture. Here's what Luke says, as the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. Some of my favorite translations put it this way.
He steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem. Jesus is on the clock. And can I show you just the coolest thing? I love that verse.
Jesus said, steadfastly, to set his face to go to Jerusalem. I don't know if you knew this though. This was actually another Old Testament, Messianic prophecy. Again, you go back to Isaiah, this great prophet 700 years before Jesus.
Quote, because the sovereign Lord helps me, I will not be disgraced. Therefore have I set my face like Flint. And I know I will not be put to shame. I will not be disgraced.
I will not be put to shame. I have set my face toward my destiny. My proven ground. Now, if you know that verse, it would lead you to one conclusion about what weight says the clock ticks down.
It would lead you to believe you knew what it did in Jerusalem for Jesus. It did for the disciples. I mean, if you're not going to be disgraced, if there is no shame in the ending, one would assume then for this Messianic king, glory awaits. Yet, it's quite amazing.
Jesus, Luke tells us, reveals not once, not twice, but three separate times to his disciples, right? Something that they didn't get then. And I'm not sure that all of his disciples get now. Let me show you, right after Peter's confession.
Literally as soon as the clock began to tick, immediately Jesus strictly warned them, not to tell this to anyone that he was the Messiah. Why? Because he is going to need now to focus on his mission. He is setting his face towards Jerusalem, and the crowds are going to need to be a thing of the past.
And he said, the son of man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed. And on the third day, raised to life. This is not what the disciples thought. Should we wait, Jesus, the king in Jerusalem?
I mean, Jesus, they had to have thought, Jesus, don't you know, Jesus, don't you know that high-day of verse about disgrace and shame? In fact, you'll see it next week, don't miss next week, but the disciples thought, Peter thought, what should we wait, Jesus in Jerusalem was a throne. Now is the time for Jesus to roll in, victorious, start the revolution against the Romans. In fact, the disciples couldn't wait.
They're spending a lot of time arguing over position in Jesus' new administration. They idea of Jesus getting killed. I mean, this was a threat to not only Jesus, but look, let's be honest, to Peter, and to all the others, not only to their positions, but to their lives. I mean, if they're going to kill Jesus, what are they going to do to Peter?
And so it's at this point, Peter who, you know, countdowns tend to reveal character. It was at this moment, it was at this moment that Peter who maybe felt the clock begins to tick. This character gets a little revealed from Matthew, who was there. Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
Never, Lord, he said, this shall never happen to you. Jesus turned and said to Peter, get behind me, Satan, you are a stumbling block to me, you are a stumbling block to me. You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns. Get behind me, Satan.
A term Jesus had actually used once before. Does anyone know who he used on the last time? Satan himself, same word. When Jesus first began his ministry, long before the clock was ticking, he set his face towards, long before he had said his face towards Jerusalem.
Satan had tempted Jesus in the desert with very human concerns, food and pride and the avoidance of suffering. Satan trying to dissuade him from his Jerusalem moment. And Jesus said the same thing that he said to Peter, because Jesus was just at his face. I would argue that from the beginning of time, the eternally preexisting Jesus has always had his face set on Jerusalem.
Peter had one kind of kingdom in mind, Jesus had another. And so listen to what Jesus says to the disciples. But I have to believe he said it with Peter in mind. Looks around after Peter says that and he goes, I think internally he's one, I can't believe you guys don't get this.
He goes, you know, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. Where? What's your own Jerusalem's? For however wants to save their life, we'll lose it, but whoever loses their life from me, we'll save it.
What good is it for somebody to gain the whole world and yet lose or forfeit their very self? When the clock gets ticking, when the countdown begins to the difficult moment, Jesus said, will you follow me into it or will you try your best to avoid it? Will you choose the concerns of this life, the values of this world? Or will you choose me and mine even when they're difficult?
What does it mean to follow Jesus to Jerusalem? Well, apparently it begins with a cross. Cause notice what Jesus said, Jesus is nowhere near Jerusalem. The story has yet to be written.
The disciples know nothing of Calvary, but he's already talking about a cross. We read that verse, right? And we have history to look back on. They read it and go, what?
Cause Jesus knew what awaited him there. It was no surprise to Jesus. Luke tells us, Jesus on two other occasions what explained to his disciples on this 10th chapter travel narrative. He keeps trying to tell them.
Listen carefully at one point. He says to what I'm trying to tell you, the Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, but they did not understand what this meant. It was hidden from them so that they didn't grasp it and they were afraid to ask them about it. You wanna know how we can know they didn't understand what it meant?
The very next verse. An argument started among the disciples as to which of them would be the greatest. You can't make that up, right? You know why I think they were afraid to ask them about it?
They didn't wanna know. Yeah, yeah, I know it's not talking about that. Ignorance for them in their mind would be bliss. In Luke 18, as the moment draws closer, he tries one more time.
Jesus took the 12 aside and he told them, we are going up to Jerusalem. I love that. He sends the determination and the strength, right? Despite your protests, we are going, right?
We are going up to Jerusalem. And everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled. He will be delivered over to the Gentiles. They will mock him, insult him and spit on him.
They will flog him and kill him. And on the third day, he will rise again. The disciples did not understand any of this. It's meaning was hidden from them and it did not know what he was talking about.
Of course they didn't. It didn't make any sense to them. They're on their way to Jerusalem to reign. They're going to Jerusalem for power and for fame.
Jesus is going to serve and die on this road towards Jerusalem, a pretty famous interaction happens along the way in the travel narrative that happens shortly after that second warning about what was coming. The disciples actually heard this conversation. Why do I say that? I believe they had to have because Luke, who was not there, wrote about it.
So I'm guessing it was reported to him. But again, I think that they looked back and thought about it and said, now I may be get this. But here's how it went down as they were walking along the road on the way to Jerusalem. A man said to Jesus, you know, I'll follow you wherever you go.
Jesus replied, foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head. There was something about this man that Jesus discerned, something about his pledge, something about his desire for comfort and security. Jesus said, I don't have any of those things that are a priority for you. He said to another man, follow me, but he replied, Lord, first let me go and bury my father.
Jesus said to him, let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God. Now notice what the man said, first, I've been invited to follow you and I will. But first I have this other thing that I must do. Still another said, I'll follow you Lord, but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.
And Jesus replies, no one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back and sits for service in the kingdom of God. Again, first let me do this other thing. And it's a good thing. I mean, Jesus, right?
First I remember saying in college, when I was first coming to faith, first starting to believe that Jesus is who he said he was. I remember thinking, what a terrible time to find God. Right? First let me just finish up my couple years here at Rutgers University.
By the way, I have very prestigious and fine academic institution. Thank you. Couple of alumni out there. But I remember thinking, boy, this is, you know, I am going to follow you hard as soon as I get out of this place.
But right now, first let me, well, you know, thought better of that. First, right? Let me go have a little bit of fun. And then I'll put you first.
And then I got out and I said, well, you know, Jesus, yes, I'm going to put you first. But first let me just, let me get this marriage. I got to find a wife and then once I'm married then, well, Jesus, once we get everything straight out, then I'll put you first. Well, hold on a minute.
These kids, you know, got these kids. These are all good things. And Jesus, I got to prioritize my kids. I know there's a call in my life.
I know there's a kingdom that you're building. And I'm going to get to that. But let me just, you know, just work on this first. You know, I just, let me just first get the starter house.
All right, well, then I got, I can't live this house. I got four kids. So let me, let me just, once I get my forever house, then, you know, then I'll be good. And then you're going to come first.
Really would like a beach house though. It's really hard to, all right. I get the retirement setup. So I can, you know, I've worked hard for a long time.
I really would like to do nothing for a little while. So once I get, once I get that setup, and then, then once I get my retirement like set up and lock in, then, then Jesus, then, you'll be first. But you know, I mean, I have been working a long time. And so maybe a couple of years of just travel, you know, Delbocavista, Face Two, golf cart, you know, villages, right after I relax, then I'm telling you, Jesus, I'm going to be refreshed and renewed.
And then I am all yours. There seems to be this implicit call in Jesus's teaching, especially once the countdown begins. One, he steadfastly sets his face towards Jerusalem. There is this call for us to steadfastly set ours towards our Jerusalem's, because we have a proving ground, too.
But the disciples didn't get it. They didn't want to. Oftentimes, we don't get it. I don't think we want to.
We tend to be a people who love comfort and the worries and the concerns of our own kingdoms. My face is often set towards Delbocavista, Face Two, which is why Jesus is disciple John writes about this idea of the countdown beginning as holy week approaches. It's what makes what he tells us so poignant and convicting. Scholars call it the Jahanian kot climax.
And again, in the book of John, it is the crux event in the story of Jesus. It's where everything changes. You see, John's book is different than the other synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. John writes long after they did, some 60 years after the death of Jesus.
And so John is writing from a very different perspective now with the clarity of time. And John chooses to arrange his telling of the story of Jesus around seven signs or miracles that Jesus performed. And they culminate in the resurrection of his friend Lazarus from the grave. That is the final crowning miracle showing that Jesus has even power over death.
It was this event for John that became the crux event. The clock began to tick for Jesus and Jesus knew it. Quote, John writes, from that time on, the Jewish leaders began to plot Jesus' death. As a result, and here's Jesus, as a result, Jesus stopped his public ministry among the people and he left Jerusalem.
He went to a place near the wilderness to the village of Ephraim and he stayed there with his disciples. Again, to dispel the idea that Jesus was not in charge of what was happening, John drops this little detail about Jesus going to Ephraim. Check this out, this is so cool, it is so purposeful. Remember, Luke tells us of Peter's confession?
For Luke, that was the crux moment, and that's what got the clock ticking. That occurs, Peter's confession of Jesus' Messiah when the clock begins to tick. That occurs way up at the northern end of Israel, in Caesarea Philippi. Not too far in the northern areas of Israel, not too far from the region of Galilee, where Jesus did most of his ministry.
Well, once Jesus, after Peter's confession, sets his face towards Jerusalem, he begins this march and it's no small walk. Jesus begins once he sets his face towards Jerusalem, he walks over a hundred miles. Can you imagine knowing what awaits you when you get there? Walking a hundred miles?
I mean, I'd take it kind of slow, wouldn't you? A lot of time to change your mind, you know? Okay, so now Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead in Bethany. Do you know where Bethany is?
Right outside of Jerusalem. He's just about there. John using Countdown imagery says from this time on, and he says, Jesus goes to Ephraim, which is not on the way to Jerusalem anymore. Jesus goes rogue.
He goes off the map. He kind of backtracks if you had a map, you'd see it. What's he doing? I mean, is there finally getting to him?
You know, Countdown's revealed character. I mean, was he getting shaky on this, right? Our faith tells us that Jesus was fully human and fully God, did Jesus being so close to Jerusalem that he started to pull back, change his mind a little bit, kind of like Jonah in the Old Testament, right? Go to Nineveh and Jonah goes in the opposite direction.
Something he got Jesus walking off towards Ephraim. Three words, not at all. The retreat to Ephraim, the subsequent detour that he would take on the way back through Jericho, to Jerusalem, it reveals the entire intent and plan of Jesus, which was built about historical identity, and Jesus' purposeful tactical timing. By withdrawing, by going back to the wilderness of Ephraim, Jesus is essentially pausing the clock.
He's refusing to allow the Sanhedrin to arrest him quietly and some Bethany back alley weeks before the Feast of the Passover. But instead, very intentionally, Jesus waits until the Passover crowds begin to swell. And as they reach Jericho, Jesus descends to meet them there, the lowest place on earth, to join this massive wave of pilgrims going to Jerusalem for the final ascent to the capital. This while as historians would tell us, the allurgians would say, a calculated reenactment of the history of Israel.
Just as the Old Testament Joshua led the people through Jericho to claim the Promised Land, Jesus, whose name is also Joshua, Yeshua, marches through the same gates to claim his kingdom. By choosing this specific route, he ensures his arrival in Jerusalem is going to be public, unavoidable confrontation. It is going to force the authorities. It is going to force the authorities to deal with him on the highest holy day of the year.
You have to understand this. Jesus didn't end up on the cross because he ran out of places to hide. He orchestrated a historical collision course to prove that his death was a sovereign choice, a plan thousands of years in the making. But on his way, he made one final stop.
Where Jesus would show his disciples, men still thinking that they were going to use Jesus to benefit them for their kingdom. And to show you and I, people who often tend to be people who think we're going to use Jesus to build our kingdoms. All of us who so often wind up putting our concerns and our kingdoms ahead of his. He makes a pit stop to show all of us what true discipleship looks like.
Jesus on his way from Ephraim to Jericho makes one last stop back in Bethany. Here's how John starts it. He says, six days before Passover. Tick tick tick tick tick.
Six days before Passover. Jesus came to Bethany where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. Here a dinner was given in Jesus' honor. Martha served while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him.
I mean, I love that. The dead guy is hanging out at the table, right? And check this out. John who is there too.
John writes, then Mary took a 12 ounce jar of expensive perfume made from the essence of Nard and she anointed Jesus' feet with it, wiping his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance. After all this time of Jesus telling all of the men what following him looks like, a woman shows them how great is our God. Some of you know this act by Mary how it was greeted.
Judas on behalf of the kingdom that he was busy building and ceiling, but Judas on behalf of all the other guys of Jack. Well, why wasn't there perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It's worth the years wages. With a countdown of mine.
Listen to what Jesus says. Jesus replied, leave her alone. She did this in preparation for my burial. Six days.
Tick tick tick tick. And he owes it. And somehow she does too. Somehow she seems to grasp what the others are missing.
The clock is ticking. Whether she fully understood it or not, her act fits the hour. She's responding appropriately to where Jesus is in the story. It means she's not just modeling generic love.
She's modeling love in light of the countdown. She acts like somebody who acts and knows, who knows and acts that the hour is late. This is what all of the disciples should realize. This is what all the disciples should realize.
The hour is late. Time is of the essence. The clock is ticking. Now there is so much to learn from this woman.
She has not yet heard every sermon on discipleship, but she's living it. She denies herself, doesn't she? She refuses self protection. She risks public scorn.
She gives to Jesus, what's precious? She risks being misunderstood herself. She doesn't protect her reputation. She doesn't hold back her resources.
She pours out what others would have preserved. And in so doing, she becomes an eternal living picture of discipleship. The disciples are there still asking questions about the cost and about greatness. But she seems to know something that they are still learning.
When you understand who Jesus is, and when you realize what hour it is, holding back doesn't make any sense, does it? The disciples are still counting the cost, but she's just captivated with his worth. Because when the clock is ticking, character gets revealed, doesn't it? When the pressure rose, when the hour got late, when what was coming was painful and costly, Jesus did not hide.
He did not stall. He did not retreat. He said his face. He kept walking.
He showed up for you. What the disciples would have seen, right? As shame and disgrace that Isaiah had said, God would save him from. Jesus sees as glory and love.
When the clock was ticking towards Jerusalem, Jesus showed up for you. I don't know if you feel that. But most of us, if you live long enough, most of us have a painful story or two of the times that people didn't show up for us. When things got rough, times when you maybe needed them the most, a spouse took off, a parent reacted wrong.
Maybe a friend who told you, you know how always be there, they weren't. But not Jesus. He said his face towards Jerusalem. Jesus showed up for you.
And that matters. Because if you misunderstand the cross, you will draw bad conclusions. And if you think Jesus died on accident, you're gonna spend your life trying to find somebody else to blame. You blame Judas or Pilate or the Sanhedrin, the Romans, the Jews.
But if Jesus did not die as a victim of circumstance, if he wasn't trapped, cornered or surprised or overpowered, the question is no longer who killed Jesus. As though we're out there looking for a villain, the question becomes, why did he go to Jerusalem? And the answer is, as personal as it is, painful. You know why Jesus went to Jerusalem?
For you. He went to Jerusalem because of my sin. He went to Jerusalem because of your sin. He was pierced from my transgressions.
He was crushed for your inequities. He didn't go to the cross merely because sinful men did evil things, though they did. He went to the cross because sinful men, like me, still do. And so when you look at the cross, the goal is not to point outward.
It is to point inward. It was my pride and my greed and my lust and my selfishness and my rebellion and my cowardice. And once you entered the story and you realized that Jesus showed up for you like that, his face for all eternity set towards Jerusalem, knowing the cost for you, the question actually has to become unavoidable. What would it look like for you to show up for him?
What is the Jerusalem to towards which you must set your face? What is the proving ground of your discipleship? What is the place of costly obedience that you've been trying to avoid? For some of you, your Jerusalem is the hard conversation, right?
You know you need to have it, but you avoid it. For some of you, it's finally forgiving someone who is wounded you so deeply. For others, maybe it's confessing a sin that you've just kept hidden because secrecy feels safer than freedom. For some of you, it's stepping into the call that God has on your life.
You've delayed it for years. First, you know, first, I'm going to get to that, but first, for some of you, it's serving where you'd rather be comfortable. For some of you, it's generosity. When everything in you wants to preserve and protect and build what it is that I've gotten.
For some of you, it's speaking openly about Jesus and a world where you'd rather just, you know, that's faith is personal. I just get to blend in. For some of you, it's for some of you, and I've talked to some of you this week, it's trusting Jesus in suffering instead of resenting him for not taking it away. For some of you, it's saying, Jesus, I'm done saying, first me, first my plans, first my comfort, first my kingdom, and starting to live in a different direction.
First you. That's the question, isn't it? Because it's one thing to believe in Jesus, but it is a very different thing to set your face. This Easter season, don't misunderstand this story because the clock is ticking.
Jesus himself began the countdown and countdown's reveal character, don't they? The hour is late and Jesus has already shown you what love looks like when the cost is high and he showed up for you. And so now the question link is, what does it look like when we show up for him? Let's close this one.