(Audio)
The Passion of Jesus may feel to us chaotic and out of control when we read it. But Jesus was always in control. He knew toward what he was heading when he set his face toward Jerusalem. At every step he showed his confidence in the Father's plan.
Those around Jesus did not have such confidence. They did not yet understand why it had to be this way. They tried to make up for their own fear by boasting.
“Even though I should have to die with you,
I will not deny you.”
And they all spoke similarly.
Peter, James, and John were with him in Gethsemane but they could not be truly present for their friend in his time of trial. Judas, focused, as he was on this present life, found the plan of Jesus so distasteful or incomprehensible as to betray him. Even Peter was not confident enough to go together with Jesus as he bragged that he would. He tried to follow at a distance with the eventual result of his own threefold denial of his Lord.
Jesus knew in advance that all of this would happen. He knew who would betray him. He knew that the enemy would strike the shepherd and disperse the sheep. He knew he was being anointed for burial. Yet he moved forward relentlessly, intentionally progressing toward the Cross at every step. Yet Jesus was not able to go forward because doing so was easy for him. There was a sense in which his foreknowledge made it that much more difficult.
“Abba, Father, all things are possible to you.
Take this cup away from me,
but not what I will but what you will.”
We see that his humanity really did cry out against his suffering and death. But he did not hesitate or disobey. His prayers were not finally about escape but rather to strengthen him in his acceptable of his Father's will.
Morning after morning
he opens my ear that I may hear;
and I have not rebelled,
have not turned back.
Jesus was walking through the steps of a plan that had been in the heart of the Trinity from the beginning. He was able to bear even the sense of abandonment he felt on the cross because he trusted in this plan, trusting his Father even beyond his human feelings. Looking back at Scripture, he was able to see that wherever his suffering was foretold, so too was his victory.
I have set my face like flint,
knowing that I shall not be put to shame.
Jesus progressed steadily toward the cross in a way that made it clear that it was no accident, no unintended consequence of his popularity. His life was not taken from him, but he chose to lay it down for us.
The obedience of Jesus was unfathomable for those who lived before his coming, incomprehensible to others until the resurrection made sense of it. It was therefore in a sense only natural that his followers could not keep pace with him, that they were scattered. But Jesus knew beyond doubt that obedience was the way to victory, a way that did not, that could not, eschew the trials, but rather passed through, even cut through them, to the other side.
becoming obedient to the point of death,
even death on a cross.
Because of this, God greatly exalted him
and bestowed on him the name
which is above every name,
In giving us his own body and blood Jesus has made it possible for us to share in his obedience. He can now teach us and guide us to walk through life unflinchingly no matter what trials we encounter. He shows us how to be realistic when we feel "sorrowful even to death", how to be honest about it in prayer, but to not let such sorrow win or even slow us down. Obedience can now come first, giving direction to our lives rather than being at the mercy of feelings. But by our obedience even our feelings are eventually transformed. We may cry out with Jesus, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” But we do so remembering how the psalm concludes:
All who sleep in the earth
will bow low before God;
All who have gone down into the dust
will kneel in homage.
And I will live for the LORD;
my descendants will serve you.
The generation to come will be told of the Lord,
that they may proclaim to a people yet unborn
the deliverance you have brought (see Psalm 22:30-32).
Because we have the confidence, this hope, this anchor beyond the veil, let us bring our hosannas to the King today.
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