Week 2 - Feast on the Lamb
Worship
Today as you enter into your time with The Lord, I encourage you to listen to “Yeshua (Live)” by Jesus Image.
Scripture
John 19
Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him. 2 And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe. 3 They came up to him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” and struck him with their hands. 4 Pilate went out again and said to them, “See, I am bringing him out to you that you may know that I find no guilt in him.” 5 So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, “Behold the man!” 6 When the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, “Crucify him, crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him.”
7 The Jews answered him, “We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die because he has made himself the Son of God.” 8 When Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid. 9 He entered his headquarters again and said to Jesus, “Where are you from?” But Jesus gave him no answer. 10 So Pilate said to him, “You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?” 11 Jesus answered him, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above. Therefore he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin.” 12 From then on Pilate sought to release him, but the Jews cried out, “If you release this man, you are not Caesar’s friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.” 13 So when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called The Stone Pavement, and in Aramaic Gabbatha. 14 Now it was the day of Preparation of the Passover. It was about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews, “Behold your King!” 15 They cried out, “Away with him, away with him, crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.” 16 So he delivered him over to them to be crucified.
So they took Jesus, 17 and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called The Place of a Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. 18 There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them. 19 Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” 20 Many of the Jews read this inscription, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Aramaic, in Latin, and in Greek. 21 So the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but rather, ‘This man said, I am King of the Jews.’ ” 22 Pilate answered, “What I have written I have written.” 23 When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his garments and divided them into four parts, one part for each soldier; also his tunic. But the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom, 24 so they said to one another, “Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it shall be.” This was to fulfill the Scripture which says, “They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.” So the soldiers did these things, 25 but standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26 When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” 27 Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.
28 After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.” 29 A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. 30 When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. 31 Since it was the day of Preparation, and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away. 32 So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who had been crucified with him. 33 But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. 34 But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water. 35 He who saw it has borne witness—his testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth—that you also may believe. 36 For these things took place that the Scripture might be fulfilled: “Not one of his bones will be broken.” 37 And again another Scripture says, “They will look on him whom they have pierced.”
38 After these things Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave him permission. So he came and took away his body. 39 Nicodemus also, who earlier had come to Jesus by night, came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds in weight. 40 So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews. 41 Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. 42 So because of the Jewish day of Preparation, since the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there.
Devotional
Battling with our sin can be overwhelming at times, and to be honest, disheartening. We can see the weight of our rebellion against God, feel the thick wet blanket of shame smothering us and often wonder whether we will ever be able to get out from under it’s depressing narrative. It’s a foe we can’t beat. No one has been able to beat it. For all of the sacrifices throughout history, all of the religious striving, all the self denial and effort sin remains impervious to our human efforts to overcome it. It can feel like a lost cause, until we remember the cross. And receive it as our redemption through faith, because Jesus faced sin and beat it, by paying for all of it’s consequences and thereby undermining it’s power.
Because of this, John chapter 19 is one of the most precious pieces of recorded history that we have. In it we see the sacrifice of Jesus for all humankind, that we might be ransomed from sin and death and given an eternal hope and a future.
The narrative of Jesus’ trial and crucifixion is intricate, poetic and packed with prophetic fulfilment. All throughout we see Jesus as a lamb led to slaughter, who did not open his mouth - He did not fight back, he did not defend himself, he did not call down legions of angels or allow his disciples to defend him. Why? Why would Jesus not fight back even in the midst of such mocking, such shameful treatment and such brutal and unjust torture? Hebrews tells us “for the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning it’s shame’. It’s often been said that it wasn’t nails holding Jesus to the cross, it was love. He went through all of this, and more, for love. Because he loves you. It’s mind bending to think that 2000 years ago Jesus was paying the debt for your sins, that he suffered the punishment you deserved so that you could be acquitted and walk free in forgiveness if you desired.
At the end of the crucifixion, after several hours of being asphyxiated to death Jesus exclaimed some of the most beautiful words ever spoken, that have since reverberated throughout history, ‘it is finished’. The great and imposing ‘it’. When someone refers to something like an ‘it’ without context, it means that the thing being spoken of is so obvious and has so much gravity that it doesnt even need to be said. When Jesus spoke the words ‘it is finished’, suddenly all of creation let out a sigh of relief. The giant has been slain, sin is defeated, death has lost it’s sting, the captives have been liberated, the debt is paid, Jesus succeeded in his mission to redeem us from hell and to give us eternal life with him. The wet blanket of shame has been removed and the weight of our rebellion against God has been forgiven. It’s finished. So rest today, whatever else seems to loom over your life today to cause you stress, anxiety or difficulty, take comfort in the reality that in the thing that really matters, eternal life and the war over it, this ‘it’ is finished.
Prayer
Spend some time today thanking Jesus for the cross, go reverently through the scriptures in John 19, give Jesus thanks for what he has done for you and watch as joy fills your soul.